Niepoort 1935-1975 Colheita Port
Origin: Portugal / ?% (not specified) / Price: >€1000
Niepoort, truly a world-famous name as far as port is concerned. Of course, I can only speak for Germany, but if you walk through the wine stores and better supermarkets here, you get the feeling that Niepoort dominates a good 50% of the global port trade, although interestingly, this is not the case at all. On the contrary, the house continues to be regarded as the somewhat edgy, family-run creative force, rather "small but excellent". One of the world's best-known wine critics, James Suckling, commented in the Wine Spectator: “Niepoort is to Vintage Port what Krug is to Champagne. They are both small houses in a world dominated by large competitors, but they are producing outstanding wines few can match.“.
The port wine house based in Porto (in Vila Nova de Gaia) was founded by Eduard Kebe in 1842. The Niepoort family, who had emigrated from the Netherlands, then joined in 1847 and took over the company after the owner's death. It is still family-owned today in the fifth generation, making it one of not so many port wine houses about which this can still be said. Ferreira, for example, which we discussed last, was taken over by Sogrape, a larger port conglomerate, back in 1987, even though it still remains in Portuguese hands.
Today, Niepoort is managed by Dirk van der Niepoort. He discovered his interest in top wines during an internship at Moevenpick in Switzerland. After a year of practice at the Californian winery Cuvaison, he joined the company alongside his father Rolf in 1987 — coincidentally the very year Ferreira was bought out — and has since caused quite a stir in the wine and port world. But we'll come back to that in a later article, because when he joined the family business, this bottle had already been bottled for 12 years, so his personal involvement was not on the horizon yet.
This time we taste a 1935 Niepoort Colheita and, unlike the Ferreira Port last time, with this bottle the official term, which is still common today, is emblazoned on the beautiful old-school port bottle. But what exactly does it mean? Foremost, Colheita is simply the Portuguese word for harvest and indicates that these are tawnies from a single vintage, similar to what we have already explained for Ferreira. The wines are filtered and bottled after seven years at the earliest. However, there can also be decades between harvest and bottling. During this time, the Colheita Port continues to mature in wooden barrels.
Dirk Niepoort in the warehouse
Smaller quantities are then regularly bottled from the barrel of a selected vintage over the years. This is why it is particularly important to pay attention to the bottling date for Colheitas, as a Colheita Port from 1935 that was bottled in 1965 tastes completely different to one bottled in 1989. We will go into more detail about the differences in the designations in a more general port article in the future.
As with the Ferreira, we can only emphasize again how the vibrancy and power of the port, which is only 19%, is particularly exciting, almost half a century after it was bottled. The Vietnam War officially ended, Spain's dictator Franco died, half an eternity seems to have passed since then. The Niepoort shows somewhat darker, more classic tawny port aromas than the 1900 Ferreira, but is also all the more complex. You could probably have spent an hour or two or even the whole evening with the aromas on the nose. Once again a fantastic experience.
Robin D. Strippel Notes
Nose:
Very complex, a lot of development in the glass, initially somewhat restrained with dried cherries and rather dark raisins, which one expects, it continues to develop, initially notes of molasses and brown rum, later slightly musky, fresh notes towards celery, umami notes, pomegranate, some beetroot, now also light raisins, ginger, fennel, some elegant filled chocolates
Taste:
Umami, pomegranate, cumin, nice fresh ginger with some acidity, fennel tea, hibiscus tea, dried cherries and black pepper, dark raisins, compact, very lively with still nice fresh acidity in the mouth, though a bit darker and deeper compared to the Ferreira, mahogany cabinet, but without any real bitterness, great polish and elegance
Finish:
Very subtle slightly roasted oak, mahogany wood, hibiscus tea, black pepper and dark, full cherries
93 Points
John Frose Notes
Nose:
Brown-reddish color as first visual impression, blossom honey, rich Demerara syrup, subtle tea, with time developing sweet gravy
Taste:
Intense, voluminous, roasted nuts, salty, glazed with jam, the honey caramelizes, dried cherries, varnished, dark wood furniture, long finish of dried nuts and fruits, energy like an old, vintage rum, tea with dried lemon
94 Points
