For The Love Of Port

These notes were taken after about 18 hrs in the decanter:

Dark, almost opaque burgundy with a wide, cherry-red edge. The nose opened up quite well overnight and shows raspberry/boysenberry fruit, milk chocolate, a bit of earthiness, and a stemmy/spirity flourish. There are nice cherry/red berry flavors up front , ripe and medium sweet, though the weight in the mouth is slightly on the lighter side of medium-bodied. Black pepper and spirit take over on the midpalate along with a chocolatey character, leading to a finish that is well balanced but then seems to drop off a little too quickly, leaving notes of spirit lingering. The tannins are noticable but very tame and I'm feeling like what's missing here is a bigger kick of acidity to carry the fruit through the finish. Very tasty but short of outstanding. 88/89 pts

All in all an enjoyable VP on a lighter-bodied frame that will probably peak relatively early.

This was actually the first vintage (3rd produced by Niepoort for Broadbent) where I feel the VP has a chance to hang for 20 years, just another decade from now ... which it will make with ease. Earlier versions are too simple and lack the depth, due to only one or two grapes blended in. This was a much better version but the Broadbent did not really take off at a significantly higher level until 2003. The 2000 is solid and leaps and bounds above the 1994/1997 but this was where it turned the corner.