1987 Niepoort

[Alex Bridgeman]

From a half bottle. Deep and vibrant red colour. An unusual nose of mint and coriander, with the coriander overwhelming everything else for a while, but it did start to allow other flavours of dusty red cherries come through after some time in the glass. One of the most astonishing changes in smell that I have yet experienced in tasting vintage ports. Dusty red cherries and strawberry jam in the mouth. A nice acidic lemony structure with tannins still present but not dominant. Swallowing releases the alcohol but then the aftertaste of chocolate digestive biscuits steps in and stays for a while. My overall impression of this wine is that it was a little disappointing for a 1987. It is not a strong wine and is in the bottom quartile of VPs I would expect to drink this year, nor do I think it will develop and improve significantly so I rate this as 2/2 on Tom's scale or 87/100.

[RonnieRoots]

From your note, it looks like this suffered a bit from being in half bottle. Normally the Niepoort 1987 is a very solid port for the vintage. I've tasted it 3 or 4 times and it usually scores around 90 points.

BTW, an impressive tasting of Niepoort ports! What was the occasion?

[SushiNorth]

I had one of these a little while ago and what was most noticable was the rate at which it faded. It was fabulous and interesting (both nose and taste) when i opened the bottle, but lackluster a few hours later.

[Alex Bridgeman]

From your note, it looks like this suffered a bit from being in half bottle. Normally the Niepoort 1987 is a very solid port for the vintage. I've tasted it 3 or 4 times and it usually scores around 90 points.

BTW, an impressive tasting of Niepoort ports! What was the occasion?

The only occasion was a catching up on notes that I have written but not posted yet!

[ajfeather]

I also polished off a bottle of the Niepoort 1987 recently and I would second AHB comments, strawberry jam mouth and a chocolate digestive aftertaste (I hope everyone knows what chocolate digestives taste like). More alcohol burn than I personally would look for and in the bottom half of port wines I wold drink.