Niepoort ”Drink Me”
Baga 2018
Wine Info
Region: Bairrada, Portugal
Grapes: 100% Baga
ABV: 12.4%
Winemaker: Dirk Niepoort
Viticulture: Organically-grown grapes, hand-harvested
Winemaking: fermented with natural yeast in stainless steel, aging in stainless steel
“lip-smackingly delicious”
This wine was unexpected, to say the least. As Nelson and I popped thirty or so wines to try for this release, we had a few sessions where there were several things open on the table at once. This one jumped up and down at us until we picked it. Compared to the other wines on the table, this was the most attention-grabbing, lip-smackingly delicious thing we tasted that day.
This is one of two liter bottles included in the fall release of Crunchy Red Fruit. That’s an entire additional half bottle!
If you’ve ever had Portuguese wines before, you may have heard of the name Niepoort, which doesn’t sound very Portuguese. Well northern Europeans have been very big fans of Port wine for the past four hundred years, and many names of Port houses have English or, occasionally, Dutch names. Dirk Niepoort has been revolutionizing the wine industry in Portugal for decades now. He pioneered dry wines in a region known for sweet ones, and also made organic and biodynamic viticulture commonplace throughout the Douro region.
This wine is an aromatic delight–tons of fresh red fruit notes come out on first sniff, like goji berry, huckleberry, and dried cherry. They say you can’t smell rocks in wine, but this is a wine that challenges that notion. There’s a brisk, stony mineral quality that shows up more on the palate than the nose. There’s light, soft tannins that give the wine a pleasantly piquant finish. We recommend serving this one with a slight chill on it.
We paired this one with a fish recipe! There’s reason for pairing red wine and fish sometimes. When you have a low-tannin red with no new oak flavors, it can be a wonderful pairing for fish.
suggested pairings.
iin partnership with Melissa Miranda of @Musang
We asked our friend Melissa Miranda, chef of Seattle’s Musang, to pair recipes with the September release. We’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, and we highly encourage you to go check out Musang which just opened earlier this year. She’s an excellent interpreter of Filipinx cuisine, which you’ll see with these recipes. They are made to be user-friendly and they’re absolutely delicious.
Musang’s Sarciadong Isda
Yes, a whole, pan-fried Pompano, paired with a red wine. This is the perfect kind of red wine to pair with fish, because it’s low tannin, has zero oak, and has a zingy fruit profile.
Lemon-pepper chicken
Not in the mood for seafood? Do a simple lemony chicken dish, using a recipe like this one from Food and Wine.
Music: “Play it Cool Man–Play it Cool” by George Jones
Niepoort decided to call this wine Nat-Cool, so I dunno, I just did a keyword search on Spotify until I came across this goofy little ditty. ‘Don’t you fret, don’t you get all wet.’
Learn with the Circle
Join us on Youtube as we discuss the nuances of this wine and all the fun things that make it unique.
- Jackson