For The Love Of Port

Decanted approximately 3 hours before tasting. Substantial amount of sediment in the bottle and it was a pleasure to have glass that could easily be seen through. Short 4cm cork and an odd lip on the inside of the neck meant that my Ah-So was a bit difficult to use, but I managed.

Beautiful deep ruby red in colour, very dark with colour holding right into the rim and an opaque centre. Hint of bricking just starting to develop.

On the nose on oddly medicinal smell, reminds me of Night Nurse.

Thick and sweet into the mouth with a well balanced but very acidic attack. Mid-palate develops delicious flavours of dates and figs.

Length also comes in two parts. Short fruity aftertaste followed by a developing chocolately / bitter coffee tail that lasts around a minute.

I have a feeling that this will be better with a little more time in the decanter (lucky our guests don't arrive for another 4 hours). If it gets better, I'll post another tasting note otherwise I will give this 88/100 as a decent an enjoyable wine that doesn't deliver anything exceptional.

Alex

I hope it gets better as I do have a full case of this wine...

I only had the Noval 1991 untill now, and found this one somewhat disappointing.

Good luck for both of us,

I came back to what was left of this wine after our guests had left - 32 hours after decanting. I've come to the conclusion that this bottle was probably very slightly flawed, maybe corked. The nose has improved but the medicinal note is still there, only fainter. After so much time in the decanter the main smell is of the heat of the alcohol, but there is a nice strawberry syrup flavour to it.

In the mouth the initial taste is of sweet summer fruit pudding. This does develop through the mid-palate, but not as much as I feel it could. The finish has improved massively. Lovely wave of fruit followed by strong, long dominating flavours of dark bitter chocolate.

This is much better than when I first tasted it. I would suggest that this has plently of life ahead of it yet and you should not be in a rush to drink....but worth opening a bottle if you have a full case (Monique ). My feeling is that this needs a long decant at the moment, say 10 hours, to show at its best. Personally, I prefer this wine now than when I wrote my initial note and I also think its better now than when we drank it after our meal 24 hours ago - on this showing it would merit 89/100.

Don't worry Monique, its a pretty good wine but I think I had a poor bottle.

Alex

I've had the Niepoort '91 only once, and loved it. However, it did seem to be very mature for a relatively young Port. I did taste it blind, and rated it 93 points (thinking it was much older) - but I do think it is a very good Port, although perhaps not for the long term.