Niepoort Moscatel do Douro 19% half-bottles 37.5cl

Wine information: Dirk Niepoort certainly makes some quirky wines and his Moscatel is no exception. He has only made this wine on two occasions, this is the second bottling and is part of his Projectos range which he uses for experiments! Niepoort has a long history of producing Moscatel, indeed Dirk Niepoort reckons it is "one of the great varieties of the world." Moscatel is a common variety in the Douro. It is the Moscatel Galega variety, similar to Muscat blanc à petit grains, and is mostly planted in the cooler areas on top of the mountains, particularly in the area of Alijo and Favaios. Moscatel do Douro is a dwinding category of wine from the Douro but Dirk is helping to keep it alive. The grapes for the Moscatel were picked early to ensure a lot of acidity, they are trodden in traditional stone lagares and fermented with the skins to give stucture and complexity. The wine is fortified like a normal port and then aged in a mixture of 90% old and 10% new oak barriques. Dirk's intention is to make a full-bodied wine with good structure and acidity to offset the sugar and produce a fresh wine which will age very well in the bottle. Off-the-wall wine showing lots of ripe nutty and luscious muscat flavours, but well balanced and concentrated. He recommends drinking it with Presunto (dry-cured ham from Portugal, similar to Spanish jamón or Italian prosciutto) , cheesecake or orange tart.

 
     

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