When Dirk Niepoort introduced himself amid the hundreds of barrels of Port wine packed into the Serpa Pinto cellars, in Gaia, there was little we could have predicted about the amusing, relaxed but, above all, engaging way he handles each new conversation. “I’ve always thought we should have a place to sell bottles and to offer tastings, but my problem is that I don’t like doing things by half measures. If something is going to be done badly, I’d rather not do it.” At 58, Dirk continues to inject his optimism and ambition into every project he takes on. After having revolutionised table wines in his family, raising the Douro region’s profile around the world, the current leader of Niepoort guarantees that he is mainly concerned with doing everything he does “even better.” “I believe that our growth has been the result of doing things well, without that attitude of wanting to grow by any means.”

What is certain is that Dirk Niepoort is a man of the world and of people. Although he has never studied oenology, he has mastered it like few others, speaks of the Douro with a striking sensitivity and refuses to be part of a resigned and conservative minority, aiming at broadening the world of wine to new “satellites” in the arts, music and design. And because, rather than simply promoting himself unabashedly, the important thing for him is to win over a community that is genuinely interested in his wines and his work, he has created N Collectors, a kind of wine society that seeks to bring together a “small and exclusive family” in a single place. “The idea was to bring together all these people that Dirk had been meeting, people who share the same values as Niepoort. Apart from the exclusive advantages, each member of the society will be able to hold an event in this room and invite their friends,” explains Beatriz Machado, the company’s Marketing and Wine Tourism Director.

The “temple”, as Dirk likes to call it, is undoubtedly one of the great assets of this initiative. In an old warehouse, which used to be the setting for family dinners and birthdays, a room for exclusive events was created in 2021. To get there, you have to cross the old tasting room (a veritable laboratory-museum, lined with manuscripts and family photographs) as well as the new shop and tasting room, which now hosts tastings and masterclasses tailored to each client. As for everything else, it would be impossible to list all the treasures hidden among the hundreds of barrels and national and international labels that the brand represents. Just to give you an idea: there is even a tea that ages in Port wine casks (called Pipacha), a wine cellar that stores the most expensive bottle of Port in the world (“it’s from 1863 and costs 160,000 dollars”) and a sample of Dirk’s father’s extensive collection of corkscrews, which amounts to “a total of three thousand.”