For The Love Of Port

Tasted 6/9/2009 after a tasting and a dinner party. Bottled in 1986, so a 30-yr old with an additional 23 years of bottle age! Notes, unfortunately, are from memory.

Niepoort 30-yr Old Tawny Port (bottled 1986)

Much lighter than expected in the bottle, but that's at least partially due to the light green bottle used by Niepoort. A full cork, as I recall. The lighting outside on the deck very late at night wasn't the greatest for noting color, but it looked like a very nice, deep, amber/tawny/tan.

I was coming off a cold, so I don't recall much about the nose other than thinking there was something strange about it. Not bottle stink... more like very faint burnt brown sugar. Possibly crème brûlée.

Lots of acidity in the mouth, and an echo of the burnt brown sugar. Rich mouth feel, but not syrupy. Not even close, as I recall - it was surprisingly ... um... watery (I don't like that word) in texture. Enough acid that I'd add some grapefruit to the usual list of tawny fruits like tart apricots. I also remember some wood, but I don't remember thinking it was oak. More like the wood from an old cabin in the woods.

Overall an excellent nightcap to a very long but very enjoyable evening. I think I'll stick to my Kopke and Noval 40-yr olds, though.

I don't know if you've had this before or not. But do you think the additional bottle age helped or hindered this particular bottle?

Andy Velebil wrote:I don't know if you've had this before or not. But do you think the additional bottle age helped or hindered this particular bottle?

Glenn,

Seriously, inquiring minds want to know!

I've never had it before, so I have no basis to make a judgement. In fact I've only ever had one other Niepoort tawny, and that was a 10-yr old so I can't really even speculate.

It was quite a bit different than the 20s and 40s that I usually drink, but that could easily be the Niepoort style. Roy was there too, so he might be able to give you a better answer than I can.

Ok thanks. Hopefully Roy chimes in on this one as I'm quite intrigued about the whole tawny bottle age theory.

I don't think the age hurt it because the bottle didn't seem bad in any way, but I just can't say whether or not it was helped. There was a different character to it than I'm used to in an aged tawny, but again that might just be a Niepoort character and not a bottle aging character.

In re-reading the notes I realized that I forgot to mention a coffee or toffee-like impression that I noticed high up in the back of my mouth. It added a richness to the Port, but also a bit of an edge because coffee can sometimes be a pretty sharp note.

I actually posted on this too. My post appears in the Virtual Tasting Room forum here. It was actually a 1987 bottling and only 22 years old in bottle. I am going to start a thread about Tawny and bottle age.