1948 Niepoort Garrafeira (bottled 1973)

[Alex Bridgeman]

Bottled 1952, decanted 1973. Deep amber colour with a wide gold rim; 50% opaque. Delicious marzipan on the nose, well developed and well pronounced. Clearly a colheita style port. On the palate this is lovely and soft with a terrific texture and a wonderful elegance, full of fresh flowers and meadows. There is a hint of marzipan on the late palate but the overall impression is of an elderly and delicate vintage port. The aftertaste is amazing, combining floral complexity with a long and lingering barley sugar and ginger-nut biscuit. This has amazing complexity, fabulous elegance and is really, really delicious. Served blind I guessed this to be Niepoort (from the elegance) colheita from 1957 - I should have read the signs and trusted my palate's confusion! 95/100. Drunk 30-Nov-16. Decanted 4 hours.