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2007 Niepoort Vintage Port (Cask Sample)
An extra bottle drunk at the Vargellathon - a tasting of Taylor's Quinta de Vargellas port from 1964 to 1996. Held at The Crusting Pipe on Tuesday 24th March 2009.

Many thanks to Derek for bringing it and Niepoort for offering it.

This was my first cask sample and so I'm not entirely sure what I should look for or how much of its taste is a natural consequence of it being so young. However, I was surprised at how floral this was with slightly less in the way of huge fruit than I had been expecting. Then, of course, the backbone of the wine kicks in making me spend the next 10 minutes involuntarily chewing. Based on my entire lack of experience, I wonder whether this is one for the long term or whether it might mature quite early. In any case, it will be interesting to track its progress.

I have only marginally more experience than you of cask samples. Perhaps somebody wise and knowledgeable could be persuaded to write a guide, perhaps called How to taste and judge a cask sample.

jdaw1 wrote:I have only marginally more experience than you of cask samples.

Unless US Customs take a nose bleed at the sight of 5 small containers of unidentified liquid in a small box, you and four others in NYC should have slightly more experience of tasting cask samples in a very few days time courtesy of Royal Mail Priority Airmail (small packet) delivery service, presumably reaching you via USPS at that end.

Fresh nose, not as aggressive as I imagined it would be. Lovely thick texture. Tons of red fruits and good acidity. A slight fizzyness in the mid-palate and some heat. A nice long finish with a tannic dryness which seemed to take 1 to 2 minutes to emerge.

Very difficult to evaluate this in isloation but my first impression is that it isn't a huge beast of a wine and perhaps one that will prove to be popular for early drinking when very young.

We were expecting a bit of a beast with this wine, but what we got was more of a pussycat.

Not as dark as I recalled of the '03, but artificial light can play games. Good, if not overwhelming, floral nose. Grapey on the palate, with modest tannins that did not make me grimace. Derek noticed a slight spritzyness on the tongue, which was certainly there. Not a big wine, nor a bad one; although if someone had asked me if I wanted a second glass, I would have said 'no thanks'.

Everything suggests that this is a wine for nearer term consumption rather than the long haul, but time will tell.

Tom

[url=http://www.theportforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=11919#p11919]Here[/url], on 26 Mar 2008, uncle tom wrote:! several conversations regarding the '07 vintage, talking (as is my preference) to the troops rather than the generals.
!
!, two of the major vine varieties had an an excellent vintage, while the others were much less impressive. The two top performers, he explained, can be blended to produce a wine "of great structure and perfume"

The varieties in question are Touriga Franca and Tinta Barroca.

Well, his enthusiasm was very apparent - perhaps my doubts were misplaced...

I got out my copy of Mayson to read up on these two vines.

For most purposes, these are sound vines and very widely planted, but about Touriga Franca he notes:

"It tends to mature fairly rapidly, losing colour and taking on a dusty, earthy character with age"

and about Tinta Barroca:

"The wines lose a considerable amount of colour after about fifteen years in bottle"

Early loss of colour? Earthy character? - sounds like a '75...

Agrees with your tasting note.

Elsewhere, Roy suggests that Dirk has changed his house style; so perhaps we shouldn't read too much into the differences between this wine and the Niepoort '03.

Let's see what the others are like..

Tom

Conveyed by the good offices of Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service from the fair hands of Derek T to fertile New York.

Niepoort 2007 Cask Sample: glass-stainingly plastic-bottle-stainingly purple. What’s new? Obviously more tannic than one wants, but not excruciatingly so. Indeed, it was actually drinkable. The predominant fruit was grape: presumably grapes are added, for flavouring, at some stage of manufacture. But the big feature for me was the surprise ending: sudden huge perfume, and good quality perfume at that, not overloaded white trash. With practice (aka known as further sipping) the perfume came earlier, but still strongest at the end.

Lacking expertise at cask samples, I really don’t know what to conclude. Does the current drinkability suggest an early maturity?

jdaw1 wrote:Does the current drinkability suggest an early maturity?

I had that discussion with a lot of wine producers recently and there are various opinions about this. I personal do think that these two things can match, but do not have to. I had a cask sample of the Passadouro 07 recently, which is very seducive to drink right now, but has the structure, tannins, acidity and fruit to sustain.

The Niepoort of 07 I found rather elegant than intense. I will have to try it at least one more time, but it is more alike the 05 than the 03 to me. The Niepoorts are discussing to produce a SQVP in 07 for the first time as well.

Axel

jdaw1 wrote:Conveyed by the good offices of Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service from the fair hands of Derek T to fertile New York.

I'm glad that the samples managed to survive the trip. We were debating whether a number of anonymous sample jars full or purple liquid would be impounded on arrival!

JacobH wrote:

jdaw1 wrote:Conveyed by the good offices of Royal Mail and the United States Postal Service from the fair hands of Derek T to fertile New York.

I'm glad that the samples managed to survive the trip. We were debating whether a number of anonymous sample jars full or purple liquid would be impounded on arrival!

For info: These were sent using Priority Airmail with a customs declaration sticker on the side of the package noting that the contents were "Wine tasting samples" with a value of £0. The package either passed through customs unnoticed or the declaration was acceptable to them.

DRT wrote:For info: These were sent using Priority Airmail with a customs declaration sticker on the side of the package noting that the contents were "Wine tasting samples" with a value of £0. The package either passed through customs unnoticed or the declaration was acceptable to them.

I'll wager the former. Samples or not, shipping alcohol into (and sometimes even within) the US is a minefield. Sometimes you step on a mine and get your foot blown off. Most of the time you don't.

after the lights have gone down
and i get to sit back and enjoy this myself.

julian delivered 4/11/09

a glass staining purple.

nose of sweet tea, tons of plums

loads of dark purple fruit of stewed plums, currants . A finish of orange pulps with an med tannin backbone to back it up

Glenn E. wrote:

DRT wrote:For info: These were sent using Priority Airmail with a customs declaration sticker on the side of the package noting that the contents were "Wine tasting samples" with a value of £0. The package either passed through customs unnoticed or the declaration was acceptable to them.

I'll wager the former. Samples or not, shipping alcohol into (and sometimes even within) the US is a minefield. Sometimes you step on a mine and get your foot blown off. Most of the time you don't.

Even without the alcohol, it’s can quite easily become a nightmare with normal goods. The last time I bought something in the states, it took far too much of my life to persuade Parcel Force that whilst I was happy to pay the tax on the import, there was no lawful basis for them to charge a £12 handling fee for the privilege of doing so. Especially as their their proposed course of action if I didn’t pay (sending it back to the supplier in the states) was not only, in my view, unlawful (under s.104 Postal Services Act 2000) but might amount to a criminal offence under s.83.

Received from Julian April 5 in a small bottle, i have no idea how long since it was opened:
April 5: Raspberry red, inky but not black to color. Spirity and mint in the nose. Tastes like plums, mint, only moderate tannin though more linger. Unexpectedly thin.
2 hrs in glass: some anise, light on the fruit. Still has some harsh tones.
covered glass, waited 24 hrs: Still anise, leaves my mouth with a minty feeling, though the mint is no longer in the taste.

This was a much appreciated gesture from Niepoort and DRT. I feel bad not being able to review it better, but it was disappointing and I have to be honest about that. I can only suggest that its extended travels since opening perhaps adversely affected the taste and weight of the wine. Having not had other similarly well-traveled samples to compare it against, it was reviewed at a disadvantage.

Incidentally, there’s a little bit about this port from Dirk Niepoort on Decanter.com:

Maggie Rosen, quoting Dirk Niepoort on [url=http://www.decanter.com/news/news.php?id=280355]Decanter.com[/url] wrote: The vintage is very, very good. It's less structured, and less powerful than 2003, for example, but more delicate and harmonious, and will live a long time.