Niepoort oddity

[RonnieRoots]

This discussion split off from here by DRT.

There were two bottles of Niepoort on auction last month. A 1984 and 1990. Both having plain labels and bottled 2 years after harvest. Since they are not vintage ports (at least not released as such) I'd guess they qualify as single year crusted. Or maybe just a rare oddity.

Pictures:

[DRT]

There were two bottles of Niepoort on auction last month. A 1984 and 1990. Both having plain labels and bottled 2 years after harvest. Since they are not vintage ports (at least not released as such) I'd guess they qualify as single year crusted. Or maybe just a rare oddity.[/img]

Surely a "single year port" bottled 2 years after the harvest is a VP? It cannot be anything else!!!

I think a distinction needs to be made between Crusted Ports and unapproved/unreleased Vintage Ports. The former are sanctioned by the IVDP whilst the latter are not.

[uncle tom]

I would judge the strict classification of those Niepoort wines to be a single vintage Ruby, as neither the words Reserve nor Crusted appear on the label.

However, they could have been approved by the IVP as a Crusted port if of sufficient quality.

I am personally all in favour of single vintage Crusted ports, bottled in the same manner as Vintage, when the content is of reasonable quality, but fails to reach the standard required of a Vintage port.

There are too many Vintage ports being made now, and the standard required of them is too low. If the producers want to maintain high prices for VP, the IVDP needs to be pressured into raising the standard required for approval.

Tom

[DRT]

Tom,

I agree that rule changes may be necessary to raise the bar of what can and cannot be stated to be Vintage Port but that is something for the future. At this point in time we are in the situation where we have to go with existing classifications. The naming of these Niepoorts would very much depend on whether or not they were registered and/or approved by the IVDP. If they were, they would have to be classified as VP. If not, I'm not even sure they can be classified as "Port" never mind a spefcific style?

For the data you are collecting, I think the safest thing to do is have a column (or columns) in your database to record all that you know about them so that the wheat and the chaff can be separated at a later date.
Derek

[RonnieRoots]

Haven't got a clue how they are classified, but at least they appear to have been approved as port; they do posess a selo de garantia! I guess you can contact Dirk if you want to know for sure. I haven't done that, because I didn't win this lot.

Tom, the standard for vintage port has always been too low. Producers like Cruz, Dalva etc. would have had a hard time declaring their VP's if the IV(D)P had set their standards correctly in the past. You and I disagree on the fact that the number of current VP's is too high. But we knew that already.

[uncle tom]

but at least they appear to have been approved as port; they do posess a selo de garantia

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that only the Special Category ports need IV(D)P approval, and that the Standard Ruby,Tawny and White ports can be marketed without passing any approval process.

Tom

[RonnieRoots]

I didn't know that. Assumed that everything needed to be approved. But if it's a standard, unapproved ruby, would they be allowed to put a vintage year on the label? In table wines (take Dado/Doda for instance) this is forbidden.

[DRT]

but at least they appear to have been approved as port; they do posess a selo de garantia

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that only the Special Category ports need IV(D)P approval, and that the Standard Ruby,Tawny and White ports can be marketed without passing any approval process.

Tom

My understanding is that whilst the standard wines don't go through approval process they do have to be notified to the IVDP so that they can keep track of volumes produced and released for sale and to allow the Selo to be used. If this is the case they could only be classified as one of the existing styles.

[RonnieRoots]

Should this be split into "Niepoort oddity" from the point where I posted the pictures, in order not to drift too much from the "crusted" subject?

[DRT]

Should this be split into "Niepoort oddity" from the point where I posted the pictures, in order not to drift too much from the "crusted" subject?

Agreed. Done.

[SD]

I was very surprised to see the picture of the Niepoort oddities. They have a vintage date but are bottled too early to be vintage port. From my memory vintage port must be bottled between June of the second year and January of the third year. The 1990 what? was bottled in March 1992, so it only had a year and a half of aging before bottling. Thus it can not be considered vintage port. Since it is not vintage port, it is hard to know what the style of wine is from the label.

I do not know the rules for "port of the vintage". What I have seen on the market over the years is the reserve tawny type. They have a vintage date, but are released with a quite a few years of age, more than a decade at least. I do not know why they are not released as a colheita, but possibly because the word colheita may scare off buyers who do not know what that word means and will not buy bottle with the word colheita on it. Perhaps in this case Niepoort is avoiding the term "crusted port" which also may scare off buyers. Crusted ports are not understood in America except for us port fans. An "early bottled" 1990 certainly will throw a crust unless it is a lighter style - ruby or reserve ruby.

Niepoort is trying something new. It could be a hit in America since wine buyers like to have a vintage date on the label. The rules of naming port probably prevent more information being added, so it is a simply a port of the vintage. Maybe it is a reserve ruby - full bodied without big tannin. It could be popular if the spirits are not harsh which normally is the case with young port.

[DRT]

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

[JacobH]

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

If true, then this must be one of the most bizarre fakes attempted on Port. Were there any photos of the selo which would allow the number to be read?

[DRT]

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

If true, then this must be one of the most bizarre fakes attempted on Port.

Why?

[JacobH]

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

If true, then this must be one of the most bizarre fakes attempted on Port.

Why?

Speaking from no particular personal experience, if I were in the business of faking wines, I would do my best to minimize the chances of detection and maximise the potential profits. With these bottles there are quite a few factors which militate against both of these aspects: i) they are odd, which will cause questions to be asked; ii) the bottles have selos, allowing them to be traced; iii) they are quite young so it is quite easy to ask Niepoort for their views (older oddities might not be recorded) and iv) they are quite young, and not from great vintage years, which will reduce their value.

I would have thought the profit in fakes comes from doing things like re-bottling 1970 Noval as 1970 Noval Nacional or getting half a case of Sandeman 1963 and pouring it into an empty Jeroboam and calling it a special bottling of a Taylor 45 (or 65 and selling it to DRT for about £15,000 :p). For the risk involved, it just seems odd to produce a fake for such a low value.

[DRT]

I can see your logic but I think there is probably also an opportunity to make a small killing by simply labelling a very cheap stash of crap port with the name of a well known producer and punting it into a market where that producer is well known at relatively low cost. The more expensive fakes are likely to come onto the radar of experts who will spot the flaws easily whilst selling 100 cases of this to a Dutch supermarket chain at low cost and having them fly off the shelves in double quick time is perhaps less risky?

[Andy Velebil]

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

We think alike, as I to sent Dirk an email late last night about these

[Andy Velebil]

Also remember if these are fakes they were probably made long before people were emailing things all over the world, so it was quite easy to fake things in the old days before instant information with computers. Reminds me of a certain 1933 Croft VP bottle at a tasting...one problem, they didn't make a '33 VP and it had a plastic T-cork and photocopied Selo

[Andy Velebil]

Ronnie,
I'd also let the Auction house know these are fakes...can't dispute if the producers say's their fakes!

[SushiNorth]

Perhaps a surer sign they are fakes: there aren't any on winesearcher

[JacobH]

Sorry, NO MATCHING WINES found for your search for 1931 quinta do noval nacional.

[uncle tom]

If the original photo is clear enough to read the guarantee number on one of the bottles, the IVDP should be able to tell you what they really are..

Tom

[SushiNorth]

Sorry, NO MATCHING WINES found for your search for 1931 quinta do noval nacional.

we're talking newer wines from major houses.

I might have suggested these were trial releases sent about for tasting -- cask samples of a sort -- except for that Garantia. We should be able to make out those numbers

[Glenn E.]

I can almost make them out in the picture included in the thread... if the original picture is any larger I'm sure we could figure it out.

[SushiNorth]

Now I know why i've been staring at these so long. I've never seen a Niepoort with a printed label. My 1987 empty and the 1994 in waiting are both painted, as is every other Niepoort bottle image I could find from this period (of either LBV, Colheita, or VP). Furthermore, their capsules are all yellow (tho some folks seem to have red ones), and the bottles are an impenetrable brown, not this light green.

The website, btw, listed some of those bottles as LBV, some without designation. They all sold very high for being fakes.

[JacobH]

Sorry, NO MATCHING WINES found for your search for 1931 quinta do noval nacional.

we're talking newer wines from major houses.

Sorry, NO MATCHING WINES found for your search for 2004 vargellas vinha velha.

(But it did take quite a lot of searching; Morgan ’91 used to work, but no longer)

I can almost make them out in the picture included in the thread... if the original picture is any larger I'm sure we could figure it out.

Indeed. I think the one, second from left, is something like [x]778796.

Also, on the large image, with the contrast adjusted, I think I can make out some letters which might either be a watermark or under the label. This is very rough but should show you where I am looking:

ehanced.jpg (77.82 KiB) Viewed 6680 times

(Yes the file name is misspelt )

[Glenn E.]

On the original picture, those letters are relatively clear if you tip your head to the side.

From bottom to top, it appears to read R O S G. The 'S' is more difficult to discern than the other letters, and to me the 'R' sometimes looks like a 'P' so it might read P O S G.

Neither of those make any sense to me, though.

[Glenn E.]

Oh, and one counter-point to the fake claim.

The 2007 Ports are just now being bottled... in April of 2009. So a March 1992 bottling of a 1990 VP doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.

[DRT]

I think the June bottling thing is a red herring and unconnected to the fake claim. I am fairly sure that the IVDP cannot tell you which type of port a particular serial number relates to. They can only tell you which shipper/bottler they were issued to. They key things for me are:

1. The capsules are just not right. Niepoort have used the current set of yellow, red and gold capsules since before these were supposedly bottled.
2. I have never seen a Niepoort port with anything other than a stenciled label.
3. I don't recognise the logo on these labels as belonging to Niepoort
4. IVDP guarantee labels are easy to replicate

But the clincher for me is...

5. Niepoort say they are fakes

Derek

[Portman]

A couple observations.

One, isn't it the auction house's job to authenticate different lots of wine? This lot leapt out at a couple of you guys as something quite different than other known Niepoort ports. Someone should be asking the auction house what the heck they are selling there, especially in light of the note you have from Niepoort. Having recently read "The Billionaire's Vinegar" about the faked bottles of 18th century Lafite supposedly owned by American founding father Thomas Jefferson, I was extremely troubled by the cozy relationship between the auction houses, their sources for wine, and the wine critics. I would be very, very careful buying any wine older than 50 years. Great read, by the way.

Two, if these are fakes, why did they pick such off vintage years? Odd.

Three, doesn't Vintage Niepoort have the coolest bottles? I love the yellow capsule and the industrial cast of the glass. It looks like it should have castor oil in it instead of wine. I noted that there is another thread on the board about the 1997 Niepoort. Put me down as yet another owner of a leaker. I drank it early a year or so ago and, while I didn't write down a tasting note, thought something was "off" with my bottle.

[g-man]

A couple observations.

One, isn't it the auction house's job to authenticate different lots of wine? This lot leapt out at a couple of you guys as something quite different than other known Niepoort ports. Someone should be asking the auction house what the heck they are selling there, especially in light of the note you have from Niepoort. Having recently read "The Billionaire's Vinegar" about the faked bottles of 18th century Lafite supposedly owned by American founding father Thomas Jefferson, I was extremely troubled by the cozy relationship between the auction houses, their sources for wine, and the wine critics. I would be very, very careful buying any wine older than 50 years. Great read, by the way.

Two, if these are fakes, why did they pick such off vintage years? Odd.

Something interesting I've learned from the guys across the pound is that houses will bottle ports but not officially "declare" them. So you may have some mystery bottles sometimes. Relating to off vintage years.

[JacobH]

But the clincher for me is...

5. Niepoort say they are fakes

I’m disappointed that you accepted them at their word. I was hoping for another conspiracy theory, as it’s a while since we last had one of them!

One other way in which the selos might be demonstrably fake is if they have the same number on more than one bottle...

[Andy Velebil]

Since they all look the same, and as far as I can see they all have different Selo serial numbers, I'd say someone removed a label from a real bottle and put these fakes on.

[RonnieRoots]

This thread has become popular all of a sudden. Let's try to get some things straight here:

[quote="SD]Niepoort is trying something new.[/quote]
I don't think they are. These aren't commercial releases by Niepoort, and certainly not something they are making these days.

I emailed and sent a picture of these bottles to Niepoort today and their conclusion is that they are fake!!!!

We think alike, as I to sent Dirk an email late last night about these

Andy, what did Dirk say?

Now, why would someone produce fakes like this? If it's an attempt to sell fake VP it's a job bad done. 1984 and 1990 both weren't declared, and have no auction value to speak of. Niepoort, while very much loved by conaisseurs, is not a house that stands very high on the auction ladder, certainly not 15-20 years ago, when the focus was even more on the classic producers than it is now. If you're doing this kind of stuff, it would make much more sense to print a "Nacional 1963" label than a "Niepoort 1984" one, now wouldn't it?

If the original photo is clear enough to read the guarantee number on one of the bottles, the IVDP should be able to tell you what they really are..

I don't have any other pictures than this.

Now I know why i've been staring at these so long. I've never seen a Niepoort with a printed label.

2. I have never seen a Niepoort port with anything other than a stenciled label.

Niepoort has definitely used printed labels in the past. I have an empty bottle of 1966 with a printed label, which BTW also is in a 'regular' port bottle, not the one Niepoort usually uses. Garrafeiras always have printed labels. Nowadays the labels of Junior Tinto and Senior Tawny are also printed.

3. I don't recognise the logo on these labels as belonging to Niepoort

It does. I have an old Niepoort brochure that carries the same logo (it's in Utrecht, so can't post pictures unfortunately). They also used to use this logo for bottles of barrel samples (although the labels were slightly different). Anybody who has ever been to the Niepoort lodge will recognise the small tasting room, that's stacked with sample bottles. These have the same logo on them.

The [auction house, RR] website, btw, listed some of those bottles as LBV, some without designation. They all sold very high for being fakes.

The LBV's were in a different lot and were designated as such. The only ones without designation were in this lot. The LBV's sold for a price that's not bad for LBV's of that age (and from a producer whose LBV's are known to age very well).

I don't think they are fakes. I just don't see the reason. Given that these bottles were offered in an auction with an extreme high number of Niepoort ports (lots of 1977, 1975 and 1978), I think that an importer sold of old stock. These bottles can easily have been something that Niepoort sent to them for one reason or another. Maybe to get some feedback on the quality of the vintage, or perhaps they were meant as a specific bottling for some occasion. We can be sure that it's not something that was ever put into the market as a "Niepoort product", but I do believe this is an actual Niepoort port.

[SushiNorth]

Now I know why i've been staring at these so long. I've never seen a Niepoort with a printed label.

2. I have never seen a Niepoort port with anything other than a stenciled label.

Niepoort has definitely used printed labels in the past. I have an empty bottle of 1966 with a printed label, which BTW also is in a 'regular' port bottle, not the one Niepoort usually uses. Garrafeiras always have printed labels. Nowadays the labels of Junior Tinto and Senior Tawny are also printed.
...
Given that these bottles were offered in an auction with an extreme high number of Niepoort ports (lots of 1977, 1975 and 1978), I think that an importer sold of old stock. These bottles can easily have been something that Niepoort sent to them for one reason or another. Maybe to get some feedback on the quality of the vintage, or perhaps they were meant as a specific bottling for some occasion.

One of the possibilities I considered was a tasting sample or some "other" bottle sent around by Niepoort, which might explain printed labels -- or the need for replacement labels, but I doubted such a thing would have a Garantia on them. Now on Niepoort's "Process" webpage...


We see José Nogueira with normal-shaped bottles in front of him, labels everywhere, and on the top shelf over his left shoulder two bottles with black or blue capsules and large white labels (possibly the junior, possibly something else).

3. I don't recognise the logo on these labels as belonging to Niepoort

It does. I have an old Niepoort brochure that carries the same logo (it's in Utrecht, so can't post pictures unfortunately). They also used to use this logo for bottles of barrel samples (although the labels were slightly different). Anybody who has ever been to the Niepoort lodge will recognise the small tasting room, that's stacked with sample bottles. These have the same logo on them.

Yes, I'll confirm that logo, it's the same that's on the capsule from my '87 and it appears on capsules on their website. BUT a clean version of it is not available on their website. So where might a faker get it? Ah, looks like there are some old copies floating around the web...

[DRT]

Niepoort Crest.jpg (11.78 KiB) Viewed 6571 times

Real or fake?

[Andy Velebil]

while a fun topic, lets set some things straight...when the owner of the company, who's family has owned it almost from conception in the 1800's, says it's fake....then it's fake! kinda hard to dispute that one.

Now, why would someone produce fakes like this?

Why would anyone fake a 1933 Croft VP? Not a great year, Croft didn't even make a VP that year, yet someone made a fake of this! Remember this was pre-internet as we know it today. It was hard to get information in any timely fashion back then. No emailing a photo, email, etc. It all would have gone by regular Post...if you knew the address to ship it to (again pre-internet so you couldn't just look it up online). Forgers have made all kinds of fakes and sell them to unsuspection people. If it cost 1 pound back then for a cheap ruby Port and you relabeled it with a fake label and sold it for 3 or 4 pounds you just amde one heck of a profit for very little work. Besides it is often times easier to fake the obsucre inexpensive stuff as people aren't as suspicious. You put a 1931 Nacional for sale it will garner a lot of attention and scrutiny. Put an off year VP up by a small independant producer that was not as well know world wide then and you'll have a far easier time selling it.

[Glenn E.]

while a fun topic, lets set some things straight...when the owner of the company, who's family has owned it almost from conception in the 1800's, says it's fake....then it's fake! kinda hard to dispute that one.

That same owner has been known to provide lists of his own products that aren't entirely accurate. If he can forget something as notable as his own 1964 Garrafeira, then I have no doubt he could forget a random sample sent out to a random bottler/importer/whatever many years ago.

I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just saying that his declaration that these are fakes based on a quick email isn't entirely bulletproof. Given time to research the matter, inspect the bottles/pictures, check records... then of course his word would be final in my mind.

[uncle tom]

I get stuck on the question "why would anyone take the trouble to fake something that was going to have so little value?"

The choice of dates and choice of shipper are too obviously not right for making a quick buck. On the other hand, the inclusion of the month of bottling is a little idiosyncrasy that Niepoort has been known to indulge..

My guess is that it is more likely to be a few bottles from small, genuine 'friends and family' bottlings, that were never intended for general distribution, and don't appear in any past catalogue.

It is quite possible that whoever dealt with your enquiry at Niepoort is unaware that they were ever made, and therefore concluded that they must be fake.

Next time someone vists Niepoort, take the photo and ask Dirk in person.

Tom

[RonnieRoots]

I get stuck on the question "why would anyone take the trouble to fake something that was going to have so little value?"

The choice of dates and choice of shipper are too obviously not right for making a quick buck. On the other hand, the inclusion of the month of bottling is a little idiosyncrasy that Niepoort has been known to indulge..

My guess is that it is more likely to be a few bottles from small, genuine 'friends and family' bottlings, that were never intended for general distribution, and don't appear in any past catalogue.

It is quite possible that whoever dealt with your enquiry at Niepoort is unaware that they were ever made, and therefore concluded that they must be fake.

Next time someone vists Niepoort, take the photo and ask Dirk in person.

Tom

I am very much with you on this one Tom.