12 days at Quinta do Napoles

2007

This year I decided to invest 100% of my vacation into my hobby and passion. So I will spend 12 days at Quinta do Napoles to witness and help during one part of the 2007 harvest. As usual, I’ll do my best to report the evolution of my experience in Portugal bringing some inside information complemented with pictures.

Some words on 2007:

The 2007 growing season did not have an easy start. Rain during flowering time did wash away some pollen from the flowers reducing the volume of the crop. Then too much rain fell in June and July and the need to use chemicals to prevent mildew and odium was necessary. Some vineyards suffered from hail which accounted for great losses of up to 80% of some vineyards in the Douro valley. August finally arrived with consistent weather, though not as hot as the temperatures normally rise in the Douro, rarely exceeding 40 Celsius.

While August was not as intense as we can expect in the Douro, it had plenty of sun and fresh nights to develop acidity in the grapes. The slow maturation of the grapes also brings good balance and complexity into the wines. On my arrival at Niepoort, they were mostly doing analysis of grape samples from their own vineyard, and those they will buy grapes from, to know exactly when to harvest.

As I write this, only the Pinot Noir has been harvested.

06-09-2007

Niepoort does believe in good relationships with his growers in the Douro. The success of Niepoort relies in part on the quality of the grapes they can buy in during the harvest. Dirk and his team will spend several hours working with them during the year to achieve great and consistent quality following the company’s taste philosophy.

On this hot September day, Dirk is driving me up the hills of the Pinhao valley for a visit to the Morgadia da Calçada family vineyard. This day will be spent taking berry samples of the grapes to be brought back at the Niepoort’s laboratory of Quinta do Napoles to be evaluated to know exactly what the maturity of the grapes is. From the tasting on the field it looked like it needed at least one more week before the harvest could start. Dirk is responsible with Luis Seabra, his winemaker, for the management of the vineyard and the winemaking for this small family owned business.

It was then time for a great lunch with friends, family and professionals of the trade, accompanied with the new releases of wines and port produced at the estate. Once completed, Dirk was honoured to invite whoever wanted to attend a visit to the new winery at Quinta do Napoles.

07-09-2007

Another vine friendly sunshine day is taking over the Douro region with temperatures flirting with 35 Celsius. A group of journalists from various countries are touring the Douro with the wives of Dirk Niepoort and Christiano Van Zeller as guides. They stopped at Quinta do Napoles in late morning to experience the hard work of grape harvesting in the Douro.

The vines harvested are special ones. They are non-grafted vines averaging 20 years old and selected from pre-phylloxera clones. The grapes were later taken into the charge of the winemaking team for sorting the berries and to remove the stems to then start the fermentation process.

During the afternoon it was decided that a vineyard of Sauvignon Blanc was ready to harvest. Around 80 cases, 2 tons, were brought to the facility of Napoles to be processed.

The Sauvignon Blanc has fragile skin so it is easily affected by diseases and the heat of the sun. The vineyard from where they were sourced is also quite young so the vines are not protecting the grapes with many leaves. It was important to be selective on the sorting table to remove all botrytis affected, over ripen, rotten, dried and mildew affected grapes. The stems where kept entirely.

The grapes are then brought to the pneumatic press. During this process, pressure is applied to the grapes with different intensity over a period of time to extract the right components at the right time. Once completed, the juice is separated from the skins and the stems.

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08-09-2007 and 09-09-2007

During the last weekend before the harvest things start getting busier. It is a chance for everyone to get some rest before the intensive work begins.

The weather was again favourable, temperature over 30 on Saturday and Sunday. On the night of Saturday, strong chilling wind was blowing on Pinhao bringing some clouds for Sunday.

10-09-2007

Another sunny day has started with only a few ice clouds very high above. The day starts by visiting 3 vineyards located around Vale de Mendiz to take berries back to the lab for analysis on grape maturity.

The first vineyard, Terleira, with old vines planted in 1924 is directly on the slopes of the village and is normally blended into the vintage port. It is located on a hot spot and it normally ripens before other vineyards. This year the grapes are ripening slower and it might be considered to put them into Charme.

Then we move towards the north to meet the owner of some vines from Lugar do Passadouro and the Tapada vineyards. These grapes are also quite old, averaging more than 40 years. They will go into the vintage port blend. These vineyards are normally harvested during the 3^rd week of the harvest. Today we could still see some green berries on the late ripening Tinta Roriz.

About the analysis, the winemakers will go into the vineyards during the morning to collect around 200 berries from one site. The technique is to take random berries from the vines, avoiding those that are in an extreme position like the first rows or the first plant of the row.

The tables of reference used for the analysis are accurate for tests on grape juice at 20 Celsius, this is why you want to visit the vineyards in the morning so that you avoid adjusted results that would be less accurate than results at 20 Celsius.

The basic tests include taking the weight of the berries, the volume of juice they produce from crushing them, measuring alcohol potential by refraction and measuring the acidity (PH).

With the results of those analyses we’ll be able to know the yields of the vineyard and when the grapes will be ripe with the balance and the components we want. For port, the acidity we are looking for is a PH between 3,5 and 3,55; for the sugar, over 14% of potential alcohol. As the potential of alcohol within a berry rises, the acidity will drop. These numbers can fluctuate quickly with just a few days of sunshine.

Today the tests concluded that the 3 vineyards did not have the maturity we were looking for with alcohol potentials below 14 degrees and the acidity below 3,50 PH. Things are looking good with the sunshine forecasted for the next few days as it will make the alcohol potential rise and the acidity drop.

Today was the start of the harvest at Quinta do Carril. The red grapes harvested today should be part of Batuta.

In the late afternoon, some white grapes from elevated vineyards of more than 600 meters came in. They look healthier than the Sauvignon Blanc of Friday.

As the harvest is starting slowly, bringing only 2-3 trucks of grapes per day compared with 10 or more during the peak, the stagiaires are handling the work. These days are hard work for them as they start early, bringing back samples from the field, sorting the grapes and one part we can easily avoid thinking of, washing all the machinery. It can take as much time to clean it as to use it.

11-09-2007

The day starts with a bright blue sky in the Pinhao Valley, though colder than the previous day. The heat is building and it will be another hot and sunny day.

This morning we started with samples from red grapes situated in high altitude vineyards of the Pinhao valley.

We had a great dinner with a sommelier from Brazil and Alvaro Castro as guests. He brought a few of his wines along with the Dado 05 barrel sample that looked very promising.

Later in the afternoon some white grapes arrived, they will be used for the Tiara.

12-09-2007

Another hot day with a clear sky, the harvest is starting to get serious at Quinta do Napoles with a few shipments of grapes getting to the winery, 3 of reds and 2 of whites. Some grapes are coming from east facing slopes of the Quinta do Carril and should be used for Batuta. Other red grapes from other vineyards arrived today that should be used for either Redoma or Batuta. The delivery of white grapes from old vineyards should be used for all the whites, including Port.

It is worth mentioning that the harvesters are incredibly skilled. We all know that it is hard to manually harvest grapes in the Douro. But you don’t really get the sense of it until you put one foot in those extremely steep hills. Just making my way up and down to take pictures needed 100% of my attention. Those workers are moving fast and efficiently carrying charges of more than 20 kilos of grapes during an eight hours shift.

At Napoles, a team of women are in charge of picking the grapes into small buckets to then transfer into larger containers that can carry around 20-25kg. The men are carrying them back to the truck up or down the hill over distances that often reach 100 meters. Once the truck is full, it is brought back at Napoles so the grapes can be handled by the winemaking team. The harvest teams starts at 07:00 and they finish at 16:30.

At Napoles, the harvest is supervised by Manuel Rodrogues to be sure that the work is done properly. He is in charge of all the works done on the vineyards of Napoles and a few others.

13-09-2007

Some clouds are in the sky in the early morning but not enough to stop the sunshine from heating the valley. Near the end of the day big clouds were moving in and a fear of rain was felt but none came.

Today, at Napoles, we received a very special guest: the Japanese ambassador for Portugal. He is touring the country with his wife and this week, the focus was on wines and Port of the Douro. It was a very nice occasion to talk with someone with such knowledge of world commerce and political actuality.

The harvest continues at Napoles and the parts of the vineyards of Quinta do Carril located closer to the river Tedo. It is getting toward its peak as more trucks are delivering the grapes. 2 teams are now in place for taking care of the delivery and sorting the grapes. At 17:00 there will be another shift.

Sorting the grapes to make 2 good wines! To be successful with the dry whites, the sorting team needs to remove all the dry and rotten fruits. Though all the botrytis affected berries can still be used to make a sweet wine. Niepoort has been making one named Colheita Tardive for a few years now under the Projectos label and has started releasing it on the market now. It is made in very small quantities, around 1500 bottles.

As the analysis from the fermenting must is coming in, it indicates that the alcohol level will be high this year, even though the tests done on the same vineyard’s berries were lower. This is mainly due to the dry raisiny berries that are often hard to integrate in lab tests done from field berries. As Dirk says, lab tests are necessary but you can’t base your decision solely on these, you need to use your intuition and field experience to make the right decision on when to harvest a plot. At least the high altitude vineyards have not yet been harvested and they should bring a balance to the final blend.

As we drive trough the vineyards, I’ve discovered that the Douro region has similar aspects to Burgundy. There are roughly 36 thousand land owners for 30 thousand hectares. This makes the Douro very segmented. As we visit the small parcels that Niepoort are buying grapes from during the harvest, very often less than 1 hectare of vines, we find that each of these parcels has a name that when combined with the name of the owner makes it unique. It is also identified by the village or the quinta it resides in. As an example, today one team is harvesting the Niepoort, Quinta do Napoles, Patamares do Rio parcel.

14-09-2007

Another very hot day is setting in, probably the hottest day of the week so far. Again, many big clouds came by the end of the day, the humidity builds but there is no rain so far.

In the morning a tasting of the new Douro producers is organized at the Vintage House hotel in Pinhao. Niepoort, along with the others, were presenting the new releases of their wines and port: mainly 2006 for the whites and 2005 for Ports and reds. I was impressed with the overall quality of the wines. Douro wine producers are generally leaving the big ripe fruit combined with high tannins style behind to present more elegant wines. Yes the fruit is still very ripe and the tannins are present but everything is more fresh and balanced.

More and more grapes are coming in from many producers and of course Quinta do Napoles and Carril. The teams are working hard to sort the grapes so we can start pressing and fermenting them as soon as possible.

It is interesting to note that from the same white grapes being crushed, both wine and port are produced. The first press juice requires more pressure to extract more components, it will be used for port, the second press juice is coming from gentle extraction and will be used for dry whites.

At the Vale de Mendiz installation, the team managed by Nick Delaforce is starting to tread the grapes to make Charme. Charme is the wine that Niepoort cares the most of for its quality and style. This is why in 2001 and 2003, it was not made. Charme production starts in lagares where entire grapes cluster will be foot trodden and macerated for 3 days. It will then be fermented and aged in new oak barrels. With this wine, the aim is to make an elegant and complex Douro wine with perfect balance between fruit, acidity and tannins.

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15-09-2007

A very hot day again, as hot if not more than yesterday. We can see the haze on the horizon and it is very hard to take scenic pictures, it is like as if a cloud of dust was in the air.

Today I went to have a view of the Port facility at Vale de Mediz. Nick Delaforce is in charge of the team over there. So far, only one lagare has been filled to make what could possibly be Charme. The colour and the odours are very interesting and of high quality.

So far 2007 looks to be a better year for the dry wines than Port. The Port production should start slowly by the 17^th and reach its peak around the 25^th unless bad weather gets in. At the moment, the team is mainly cleaning all the installations to be ready to receive the grapes.

After lunch, we visited a high altitude vineyard which is mainly planted with mixed old vines that are available to buy. Overall the location is great, the soil is of very good quality but, at the moment, the vines are producing too many grapes. We tasted the berries and noticed the lack of flavours compared to what has been entering the Niepoort facilities so far.

It was then time for grape stomping! The Charme lagares needed some grape movement, a job me and a German tourist gladly accepted. It was far more enjoyable to do than I first thought. The temperature of the lagares is kept around 22 Celsius, so it was refreshing to do this. It was like having a foot massage to crush the grapes and stems in the lagares. I’ll have to repeat this!

During this stage of the harvest rain is really not wanted. The problem is with the vines, since it has not rained for a long time in the Douro they would take up all the water available and send it into the plant and berries. This would dilute the concentration, but a few days of sunshine would correct this. The issue is with vines that have tight grape cluster: too much water to the fruit would break a few skins of the berries causing rot to happen. Grapes are much more sensitive to disease at the moment than early in their maturation because of the proximity of the berries and the softness and thickness of the skins. One of the best grapes to avoid those problems is Tinta Caô, this is the grape you want to plant if you want to harvest in later October and not be worried about diseases, though it is not popular for other reasons.

At the moment for Niepoort, rain is not really wanted but it is not feared if it comes. The water supply during the year was more than enough so the grapes have skins that can extend enough to take some water. It just needs to dry fast so that rot does not establish itself on the grapes.

About port production, one of the important parts is the press juice. Once you have emptied the lagares, all the grapes skins are press again to get the last bit of juice they contain. This will give the structure to the Port. If this was not added port would taste too soft and flabby. It is important in both ruby and tawny styles.

At Vale de Mendiz, we try to get the most we can out of the grapes during the port production. It will then be decided which barrels will go for which type of port. History over many years demonstrates the consistency of which vineyards are producing the best juice for each type of port, though nothing is taken for granted and everything is tasted over and over again to confirm the quality.

At the Quinta do Napoles, more and more grapes are coming in. The sorting teams are working long shift to process all the grapes as the quality must be maintained.

16-09-2007

The 15^th finished very late or the 16^th started very early, it was a very long night of sorting grapes from 10pm to 6am.

After some rest, it was sad to witness all the clouds in the sky. It then turned into a nightmare for some wine producers: thunderstorms for an hour and a half and gentle rain for the remainder of the afternoon. At least at Napoles they where able to harvest a few tons before it started, thought it was not the plan to receive a lot today as the tanks and the lagares are almost all full, fermenting the recently harvested grapes.

Yesterday, 2 of the lagares were filled with red grapes for the production of Redoma. The grapes are removed from their stems and transported through coil from the winery to the lagare house nearby. These grapes will be crushed by a team of workers helped by a French journalist, a South African PR and one Canadian (me).

17-09-2007

The day started with early thunderstorms and showers in the Douro. Just like yesterday, it rains for a few minutes to an hour depending on which region the vineyard is situated. Around 11am the sun is shining brightly and setting up for a very hot and humid day.

There is one vineyard that produces white grapes for Niepoort that was not affected by the rain, these grapes will come in today. The vineyards that received more rain will be visited and the berries will be tasted again to provide a new evaluation of their maturity.

At the moment, around 20% of the harvest has been completed at Niepoort. The reds and the whites are starting their fermentation and we can start to taste them. Some vats are really looking promising.

One of the important aspects during the fermentation is the “remontage” of the juice on top of the tank. During this process, we pump the juice from the bottom of the tank and spray the cap to make sure it does not dry out and to mix the juice and the skins again. This is done about once per day. It is the right occasion to also add some products to the blend if needed. So far only 2 tanks required some tartaric acid addition, which is a good sign.

For lunch today we had the opportunity to welcome Christiano Van Zeller. He is such a great guy with a real passion for the Douro. The Rio Torto, where his quinta is located, did not have as much rain so they decided to continue with the harvest before the vines absorb all that water, which should happen in the next 48 hours. We also discussed a few interesting maters including the rise of sugar levels in the berries. Christiano said that it takes as few as 4 days for the alcohol potential to rise by 2 degrees in a berry with the temperature we have at the moment. So you can start harvesting the grapes at the maturity you want but when the harvest is done, you end up with a level of maturation that was not wanted. That is why a vintage like 2003 was difficult and ended up with wines that were big. For Vintage port this is never a problem, the riper the grapes the easier it is to make port, if we can say such a thing! Christiano brought a very good bottle of his Van Zeller red wine from 2004, a new brand for which he buys in the grapes.

This is unfortunately the end to 12 amazing days with an incredibly skilled team. It was great to witness the evolution of a harvest in the Douro, and all the work required for it and to be part of it on a few occasions. The warmth and the generosity of the Portuguese people is so engrained into them that you just feel like you are at home with them. Many thanks to the Niepoort family and the team who let me experience and share the experience of a harvest. The invitation for next year has already been sent and I hope I’ll be able to report on the 2008 harvest.

The new winery

When I visited Quinta do Napoles in October of 2006 there was a scale model of the new winery that was about to be built. It was the logic progression of the company with their slowly but increasing growth in production.

This new state of the art winery was built to be simple but very efficient. Many techniques have been implemented to save as much energy as possible during the phases of wine production. The main idea was to work by gravity. Which means that the top floor handles the raw products and it goes down to the lower floors in each stage of its transformation cycle. The berries are sorted and crushed on the ground floor level. They then go to the basement floor to be fermented and finally end in a second basement to finish the fermentation in casks where they age before being bottled.

Only the ageing rooms have air conditioning, the winery temperature is controlled mainly by a wall of schist. This way it brings the freshness and humidity of the mountain. Two solar panels have been installed but are not yet operational as the winery is functional for the harvest but not 100% completed.

The Team at Quinta do Napoles

20 years ago, Dirk and his father bought Quinta do Napoles with the intention of producing Port from its vineyard. Over the years it became clear that Napoles was not ideal for Ports but perfect for the dry wines. Napoles is not an easy vineyard to work with, it is located on the banks of the Tedo river, a few meters from where it joins the Douro giving this site more humidity. To be successful, it is important to be rigorous both in the vineyard and grape sorting. Due to the humidity, sensitive varieties and the south facing slopes, there is some raisin and rotten berries that need to be removed to avoid off flavours.

At Niepoort, Dirk believes in team work, not only to be efficient but to take the right decisions. Here is a brief description and history of the employees that have key roles during the harvest.

Dirk Niepoort

Dirk officially joined the team in 1987 to assists his father in port making. He is now President of the company as his father retired in 2005.

Over the years, Dirk has built a growing interest in wines. He likes to taste the wines from all countries but his heart remains with Burgundy. He started to experiment with wines in the late 80´s and finally released the first Redoma from the 1991 harvest. Dirk always thought that his first wine had to be big as it was from the Douro. It took him a few tries and time to realise he’d prefer a much more elegant wine to be produced in the Douro.

His favourite wine being DRC La Tâche, he wanted to find out what was really different about the winemaking over there. One major difference was to keep the entire stem during the maceration. Dirk then decided to do the same and this wine became Charme, which is probably the wine showing most finesse and balance of all the Douro reds.

Today Dirk is still involved in most of the decisions taken around Port production as he still blends a lot of them, but he is mainly focusing on the development of the winemaking, an area where Niepoort can still gain many more customers as the current production is not meeting the demand.

During harvest time Dirk is often on the phone or in his 4x4 vehicle keeping in touch with his team and the small producers to allow him to make the right decision on when to harvest each vineyard.

This season, Dirk has received many visitors because of the new winery and all the good relations he keeps with the other port producers. He is a very generous person and often invites people he has met for the first time during the day at his table. He always does the little extra that is needed to promote and improve the quality of all Douro wines and Port image.

Luis Seabra

Luis joined Niepoort in 2004. Before joining the team, he worked in the Vinho Verde and Douro regions making wines for a number of companies. Every year was a challenge as the funds were low and he was pushing as much as he could to do the best out of what was available. A mutual friend of Dirk and Luis put them in contact in 2004 when Niepoort was looking for a new winemaker.

Luis went to Dirk’s house to taste a few of the wines he had made and to talk about his taste and vision on wine. They quickly had a very good feeling about one another and started working as a team shortly afterwards.

Luis has many responsibilities during the harvest. With Dirk, he is taking decisions on when to harvest each of the vineyards and parcels. He must also make sure that the winery, the vats and the barrels that will complete the aging of the wines are ready to receive them.

He must supervise and teach the employees what is needed to make the quality of wines they want to achieve at Napoles. This means teaching what is good and what is not on the grape selection tables, tasting the juice that runs off the press and tasting the fermenting musts as much as four times per day.

Helped with laboratory analysis, Luis follows the evolution of the wine from the first berry to barrel aging to be aware of the wine quality and components and to react quickly if any corrections are needed. It is many days of intense work.

Nick Delaforce

Nick joined the Niepoort team in 2003 with responsibilities for the production of Port and Charme. He is also part of the blending team for the LBV and Vintage port of the house. Nick really likes the challenge of finding the ideal components for young ports that will develop into layers of complexity over time.

Nick brought some new ideas to the team and with Dirk they implemented and refined little modifications in the way they make ports that made a noticeable impact on the final quality of the product. In 2004, Nick was the main artisan of the revamping of an old museum in the Vale de Mendiz village. Niepoort bought this facility and transformed it so it can be used for port production.

During the harvest, Nick supervises the team for the production of Port and Charme in the Vale de Mendiz facilities. Charme is a very special wine in the way it is made. The grapes are trodden with 100% stem in the lagares just like port but they don’t want to extract as much components so the first part of the treading is gentle. Charme is meant to be a silky, fresh and elegant wine. Nick must enjoy supervising the first days of evolution in the process of this wine.

Same goes with the Port wine, since the fermentation lasts for no more than 3 days, this is the time Nick has to be sure he’ll get all the components needed for the composition of the Port. He will also rely on lab analysis to know the exact amount of distilled alcohol that is needed to stop the fermentation and bring the Port around 20% of alcohol.

Gabriella Santos

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