Before you say anything, I know. Port is something to review in November, not May, but it is freezing outside and aside from it being light much later, there is little to tell the difference between the 23rd May and 23rd November. So port it is, and ports from Niepoort.
I decided to try a pair of cheaper ports and also a couple of different vintages of their Late Bottled Vintage. First up was the Tawny Dee and Ruby Dum.
The Niepoort Tawny Dee was a super wee tawny. It looked more like a lighter ruby as there was still a lot of red in the colour, but it was quite transparent and looked more like an older vintage. The nose too had a lot of sweeter, juicier red berries, but there was a definite Tawny element. Some raisin elements, a lot of brown sugar and prunes came through. The palate was quite sweet, with a combination of brambles and prunes, blueberries and leather and then with a dried fruit soaked in rum flavour on the finish. It was very well balanced, with a lovely, long lasting finish. 8/10
The Niepoort Ruby Dum was similarly good. It was big, juicy, slightly jammy, with a bundle of spice and herbs rammed up your nose. There was a gorgeous creamy texture with an almost nectar like quality to it, warming your mouth with small pricks of alcohol, tempered by cocoa, milk chocolate and sweet autumn berry flavours. The main criticism was a slightly alcoholic finish, but it was a lovely port nevertheless. 7/10
Then we went to two vintages of their Late Bottle Vintage. Niepoort, along with Noval and Warre, produce proper LBV's, not these filtered and cheaper LBVs from Graham or Taylor. The former group of producers embrace what an LBV is really about, producing a vintage style of port at a younger age without the need for decades of aging. Whereas Graham and Taylor produce more of a vintage ruby port - not that there is anything wrong with that - it is just that it is a different style. The traditional style of LBV is a wine that can age, and so I decided to try the 1996 vintage against the current 2005.
The 1996 Niepoort LBV was a bit passed its best, although that could have been down to storage. It still showed some lovely fruit aromas and flavours, but it was a bit acidic, and there was a very strong alcohol element coming through. Secondary flavours of spice were to the fore and it was a bit unbalanced. Still a port you can drink, but not one that was great. 5/10
The 2005 Niepoort LBV was, at first, a bit volatile, but with time it softened, offering lush berry fruit, a bit of caramel on the nose with some lovely cinnamon and aniseed aromas. The palate was lush, dark and tannic, with lots of chocolate, honey and brambles galore coming through. A lovely port that I think needs a few years to settle, but maybe not as many as the 1996 had. 6.5/10
The forward fruit of the Dee and Dum wines won the day for me. I have no doubt about the quality of either the 1996 or 2005 LBV wines, but today, with the rain pouring and the wind howling, I wanted some instant gratification, and got that from two cheaper bottles of port.
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