Dinner
with Dirk Niepoort, May 2004
Capital Hotel, Knightsbridge
London May 19th 2004
It’s becoming an annual institution. This year’s event
was the third dinner with Dirk Niepoort, the first two being held at
Alastair Little and then last year at Richard Corrigan’s Lindsay
House. This year we moved up a Michelin star to Eric Chavot’s
restaurant at the Capital Hotel in Knightsbridge. The food, as you
would expect, was superb, and it was nice to be drinking the wines in
their correct context rather than just tasting them.
Neil
Beckett (Harpers and World of Fine Wine) looks
reflective (top right), Nick Delaforce (who works with Dirk on
the Niepoort ports) takes a sniff (bottom right), and Jim Budd
can be seen amid the glasses (bottom left).
To start off with, we had a dry white Port, but it’s
rather different to most of the forgettable examples of this genre.
Niepoort Very Old Dry White Port
No one seemed to know exactly how old this wine was. Dirk says it
was around 60 years old when it was bottled in 1984, having spent 55
years in glass demijohns of the kind used for the Garrafeira ports for
which Niepoort are famous. It has a nose reminiscent of Madeira, with
lemony, candied fruit, spice and caramel. The palate is smooth and
lemony with nutty complexity. Real intensity and good acidity. Dirk
says this has ‘great balance and elegance’, and I agree. Very
good/excellent 92/100
Niepoort Redoma Branco 2002
I’m a big fan of Dirk’s whites. 2002 is considered to be a bad
year in the Douro, but some growers really did pick certain vineyards
before the rains that plagued this harvest. That’s the case for this
wine, which comes from 60–120-year old vineyards at high altitude.
The wine is barrel-fermented and aged in barrique for 12 months.
There’s a little bit of wood on the nose with lovely minerality:
fresh and appealing with a slightly smoky, spicy edge. The palate is
intense, savoury, minerally and spicy with good acidity. Very fresh
and potentially long lived: I’d guess that this will be brilliant in
a decade’s time. It’s already hard to resist. Very good/excellent
93/100
Niepoort Redoma Rosé 2001
This is about as serious as Rosé gets. 25% is fermented in new
wood, some in old wood and the rest in stainless steel. Dirk says that
the wood helps to keep it alive in the ageing process, and thinks that
this may age for a few years. It’s a deep pink/red colour. Savoury,
fresh nose with some herby, strawberry fruit. The palate is savoury
and fresh with herb-tinged taut fruit. Still tasting youthful with no
sign of the wood. Very good+ 89/100
Niepoort Vertente 2001
Made from 15–60 year old vineyards, with quite a lot of Touriga
Nacional and not as much Tinta Amarela as Dirk’s other wines. Dirk
says that with Vertente he wants to make a wine that is more consumer
friendly than Redoma with a bit more fruit. ‘Still, I don’t want
to make a commercial easy drinking wine’. He hopes that with five
years of age it will behave like a nice claret. Nice savoury berry and
cherry fruit with a hint of green herbiness. The palate shows vibrant
berry fruits with great depth, some structure and an appealing savoury
character. Lovely balance to the fruit and nice spicy finish: a
delicious wine that could probably do with a few more years. Very
good+ 89/100
I’ve struggled a little to understand Vertente –
despite being the most approachable red wine in the line-up, it
isn’t showy or flashy, and for £15 it seemed a bit overpriced to
me. But I suspect there’s more to it than my initial impressions had
previously indicated: this could well be a wine that develops into
something rather serious and interesting with a few years in bottle.
Redoma 2001, on the other hand, is a different kettle of fish. It’s
a wine with immediate impact, and to my palate the best Redoma yet.
This was my second encounter with it. While the 2000 had become a bit
civilized and less distinctive, this has more of the wildness of the
Douro to it.
Niepoort Redoma 2001
Lovely ripe, robust, spicy wine showing dark fruits, spice and
with a bit of chocolatey richness on the nose. Lots of flavour, with
good acid and a tannic, spicy finish. A serious effort. Very
good/excellent 93/100
Niepoort Batuta 2001
‘Batuta is not an easy wine’, says Dirk. It is wild and
intense, but very refined at the same time, with great length and
finesse. Chocolatey, spicy nose. Brilliant intensity of smooth,
savoury fruit on the palate with firm tannins and a silkiness to the
substantial structure. Good acidity. Excellent 95/100
Dirk had some interesting things to say about greenness in
wines. ‘A bit of greenness is good, because it goes away,’ he
said. Batuta 2001 was picked at 12.5 degrees alcohol with 8.5 g of
acidity. In the Douro in 2001 he says that people were afraid that the
wines weren’t physiologically ripe, with a bit of greenness. But
2001 has arguably turned out to be a better table wine vintage than
the widely acclaimed 2000. ‘I like wines that have acidity; wines
that are not boring’, he says.
We then moved on to Charme 2002. ‘2002 is in theory a bad
year’, explained Dirk. It was a year where there were incessant
rains at harvest time, resulting in a lot of rot and dilution.
70–80% of the grapes for Charme were picked before the rains, and
the rest was harvested afterwards. But later on, in transporting the
Charme barrels some of the numbers got mixed up and for a while they
genuinely thought that the latter-picked portion was better. Charme is
made in lagares with stems, and it is a difficult wine to make.
‘Every single detail has to be perfect’, according to Dirk. A lot
has to be extracted very early on in the lagar, and then the rest has
to be extracted very gently. In 2001 he says that they missed it by as
little as a few hours, and as a result none will be released.
Niepoort Charme 2002
Very smooth ripe, rich nose. It’s elegant and full with a nice
chocolatey depth, with a hint of wood. The palate is smooth and ripe
with a nice spicy elegance. Smooth, with some tannic structure. Very
fine and brilliantly elegant. Excellent 95/100
I felt that I had begin to understand what Dirk is trying
to do with his red wines a little more from this evening. There are
other wines from the Douro that are now gaining critics’ plaudits
with their more immediate impact, but I feel Dirk’s are that little
bit more serious – if you like, a more authentic expression of the
Douro with the potential to develop with age. The style has moved
around a little, but I suspect with the 2001 vintage that Dirk is more
happy with the direction they are taking, and that this is the way
that he will probably be going. But that’s just a hunch. To finish
with we had three impressive Ports.
Niepoort LBV 1999
Lovely lifted, spicy element to the nose. Nice, spicy and fairly
tannic on the palate with good balance. Subtly herby ripe black
fruits. Quite tannic and structured, this is a substantial, bold wine
offering lots of pleasure now but with some capacity to develop. Very
good/excellent 92/100
Niepoort Vintage 1977
Quite deep colour. This has a wonderful spicy richness and
youthful liqouricey fruit. Quite lovely with wonderful complexity and
elegance – a bold wine. Excellent 95/100
Niepoort 30 year old Tawny
Complex raisiny, spicy and very elegant. Good acidity. Fresh and
spicy with great length – almost profound. Very good/excellent
94/100
see
also: Dinner With Dirk 1 and 2
and 4
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