Niepoort Bioma Tinto, Douro

Description

Niepoort Bioma is a Douro red wine made from grapes sourced exclusively from Niepoort’s Quinta de Napoles vineyard. Bioma is organically produced and SATIVA-certified. It was first released in 2010.

Niepoort was founded as a Port House in 1842 and today it is run by the 5th generation winemaker Dirk van der Niepoort. Whilst Niepoort is very well known for their superb Port wines, they are now considered to be one of the top Portuguese producers of table wines. Dirk really was at the forefront of the Portuguese wine revolution. He first started experimenting with wines in 1990 and released his first red table wine, Niepoort Redoma Tinto in 1991. Dirk continues to experiment and innovate and produces some fantastic Douro wines as well as from relatively newly acquired vineyards in Bairrada and Dao. All of the red wines, with the exception of the Niepoort Charme, are made at the futuristic winery at Quinta do Napoles. Charme is made with the Ports at Vale de Mendiz.

As mentions above, the grapes for this Niepoort Bioma Tinto come from the Quinta de Napoles Vineyard. The soils here are schistous and the vines have an average age of 25 years old. The wine is a blend of Tinta Amarela, Touriga Franca, Tinta Roriz, Sousão and Touriga Nacional.

After harvest and sorting, the grapes and approximately 50% of the stems were placed into conical stainless steel tanks were they fermented and macerated for 25 days. Malolactic fermentation took place in these same stainless steel tanks over a period of about 4 months before the wine was transferred into 5000-Litre barrels where it matured for 12 months. As the Bioma is an organic wine, it did not go through any filtration or fining process. Only 6200 bottles produced.