1997 Niepoort

[winesecretary]

Well. Interesting.

I mean we've all had it. The almost universal VA problem is well noted and none of us would advise anyone to punt on a case of it.

+ 24 hours to blow off

Here we have a bottle only lightly VA affected. It spoils the nose. It smells like... really nice promisingly maturing port with VA. I'm quite sensitive to VA and my olefactory apparatus basically turns off when I detect it. But the lush blue fruits just poke through this bottle.

On the palate, the really splendid fruit that this port has shows through at first. Then the VA.... mutes it.

It is a minor tragedy that almost all of this is faulty, because I suspect a clean wine would be up there bidding for wine of the vintage.

[uncle tom]

I popped one a little over year ago - moderate VA, but nothing like enough to render the bottle undrinkable. I noted that without that, it would be a monster of a wine, but not the brooding type that says 'come back in half a century' - it was readily approachable.