Dirk Niepoort, whose family has been making Port since 1842, plunged into the table wine business in the early 1990s and is now considered one of the top producers of high-end Douro wine. His Douro wines are rich and dense, with considerable oak influence and serious weight, and Niepoort has also improved the firm's vintage Ports as well.

Niepoort's Redoma Branco, from local white varieties, offers a flamboyantly leesy, vanillin character but has the richness of fruit to support its barrel fermentation and aging in oak. (The scarcer Redoma Reserva Branco is one of Portugal's elite white wines.)

Dirk Niepoort, whose family has been making Port since 1842, plunged into the table wine business in the early 1990s and is now considered one of the top producers of high-end Douro wine. His Douro wines are rich and dense, with considerable oak influence and serious weight, and N... more