2023 Niepoort Coche Branco

“The just-bottled 2023 Coche, their grand cru, comes from two or three vineyards in the zone of Murça. It is more austere and cooler, produced like the Redoma Reserva but in specific barrels from specific forest and toast, 30% of them new. It underwent full malolactic and one year of élevage in these barrels, stabilized by keeping it four months in stainless steel. It was singing when I tasted it. It has the serious and reductive character that is a constant here, and it is spicy, smoky and flinty, with notes of cold smoke, dry flowers and herbal tea and a dry, serious and chalky mouthfeel. It reminds me of the great 2021, with austerity, contained ripeness and great precision and purity, pungent and long.”