Winemaker Notes
This wine's appearance impresses with its wonderful deep purple rim, violet glints and beautiful, intense color. The nose is delicate, elegant and incredibly sophisticated, with floral notes of violets mingling with aromas of graphite, licorice and blackberries. The true style and potential of this wine show themselves in a perfect interplay between the aromatics and structure; in harmony between body and elegances, culminating in a spicy finish which is drier than one would expect. This is probably one of the best vintage ports of the past 10 years-it has structure, acidity, sweetness and beautifully balanced.
Perfect with “Queijo da Serra”, Stilton or other blue cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has an intense nose of bramble fruit, together with dried fruit, very floral notes of violets, earth, peppercorn and a touch of graphite. It’s full-bodied with remarkable concentration that is counterbalanced by brilliant acidity and sophisticated tannins. It has an orderly and harmonious sense that will result in an exceptional wine. It's all about balance here — thought-provoking even in such a premature state. A mighty vintage from Niepoort.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Niepoort's 2022 Vintage Port comes from very old vines in the Cima Corgo zone (mostly around Pinhão), all made in lagar with 100% full clusters and matured in large (5,000- to 10,000-liter) oak vats. Dirk Niepoort wants a combination of powerful, classical vineyards with others he likes because of their elegance. The wine has a lot more finesse, but it's a little backwards and closed and took a good couple of hours to take off. It's chewy and long, with a lot of tannin, but the tannins are very refined. It has power and concentration; Niepoort wants a lot of concentration, unlike in the table wines, but the wine has an ethereal quality to it. Power and lightness—it's a wine that dances and has the energy of a ballet dancer, very long and with a dry finish.
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Wine Spectator
Açaí berry, blueberry and black cherry aromas and flavors are fresh and forthright, set against a backdrop of warm ganache, melted licorice and violet. The long finish offers a subtle, steady tug of graphite throughout.
Port is a sweet, fortified wine with numerous styles: Ruby, Tawny, Vintage, Late Bottled Vintage (LBV), White, Colheita, and a few unusual others. It is blended from from the most important red grapes of the Douro Valley, based primarily on Touriga Nacional with over 80 other varieties approved for use. Most Ports are best served slightly chilled at around 55-65°F. To learn more, see our full Port Wine Guide
The home of Port—perhaps the most internationally acclaimed beverage—the Douro region of Portugal is one of the world’s oldest delimited wine regions, established in 1756. The vineyards of the Douro, set on the slopes surrounding the Douro River (known as the Duero in Spain), are incredibly steep, necessitating the use of terracing and thus, manual vineyard management as well as harvesting. The Douro's best sites, rare outcroppings of Cambrian schist, are reserved for vineyards that yield high quality Port.
While more than 100 indigenous varieties are approved for wine production in the Douro, there are five primary grapes that make up most Port and the region's excellent, though less known, red table wines. Touriga Nacional is the finest of these, prized for its deep color, tannins and floral aromatics. Tinta Roriz (Spain's Tempranillo) adds bright acidity and red fruit flavors. Touriga Franca shows great persistence of fruit and Tinta Barroca helps round out the blend with its supple texture. Tinta Cão, a fine but low-yielding variety, is now rarely planted but still highly valued for its ability to produce excellent, complex wines.
White wines, generally crisp, mineral-driven blends of Arinto, Viosinho, Gouveio, Malvasia Fina and an assortment of other rare but local varieties, are produced in small quantities but worth noting.
With hot summers and cool, wet winters, the Duoro has a maritime climate.