Niepoort’s mission is to preserve the niche player position and continue to create great Port and Douro wines bringing together secular tradition and innovation.

NIEPOORT Team is spread out at several locations. The headquarters and main lodge are since 2007 in Vila Nova de Gaia and centralise administration, logistics, communication and production.

This is where Dirk Niepoort brings home ground-breaking ideas and plans, when returning from the many tastings and business trips. Elisabete Oliveira, in the company since 1973, worked with 3 Niepoort generations (Edu, Rolf and Dirk) and handles together with Nininha, Alexandra and Vitor the day to day work.

In 2005 José Teles integrated the Niepoort team as General Manager and Verena Niepoort joined as executive partner. The complementary experience of both José Teles (since 1988 in the port wine sector) and Verena Niepoort (project management and information technologies since 1991) are valuable to enhance structure and processes, keeping up the good teamwork and mainting flexibility, uniqueness and the healthy balance of secular tradition versus innovation.

The Niepoort Cellars are located in Vila Nova Gaia. Surrounded by different other port wine cellars, this is the magical space where the old Niepoort wines age in old casks, bottles or demijons... Masterblender José Nogueira joined his father also named José Nogueira at the age of 14 and in September 2006 José Rodrigo Nogueira (his son) integrated the Niepoort team maintaining this very special tradition of Nogueira family generation side by by side with Niepoort generations. About 15 people are employed in these cellars for the ageing, bottling, labelling and packaging of the Niepoort wines.

Nicholas Delaforce joined the team in 2003 helping in the Wine Cellars and also coordinating the harvest and vinification of port wines in the Douro (Vale Mendiz). His background, Delaforce is a traditional English port wine family, and his experience in the port wine trade since 1992 were important to invest in a dedicated vinification

Quinta de Napoles was purchased by Niepoort in 1987. The Quinta includes nearly 30 ha of vineyard. The vines are at an altitude of 180-250m and the age varies between 18 and more than 70 years. Located at the left margin of the Têdo river, this is were Niepoort makes their red, white and rosé wines. Since 1987 Maria José and Sr. Manuel live at the Quinta. Maria José is the cook for the many occasional visitors and for the team. Wines and vineyards of Niepoort and all Douro operations is in charge of Luís Seabra, with the help of Maria Gil in Laboratory, António Fonseca in the Winery and Gabriela Santos in the office.

Quinta do Carril next to Quinta de Nápoles, was purchased by Niepoort in 1988. These old vineyards the source for Batuta...The former museum in Vale Mendiz was purchased by Niepoort in 2003 and converted to a vinification center for the Niepoort port wines.

Andreas Burghardt started the design process of the winery in 2000 on a different site, a hill adjacent to the current location of the building. As Niepoort underwent a very dynamic development since the turn of the century the planning process lasted until 2007. The peroduction areas building were then erected in a very short time from February to August 2007. The tasting room and guest area was finished in 2008

The main issue for the architect was to find a sensitive way to set the huge building in the landscape. The first idea was to make an invisible building. The winery is situated on top of a hill, overlooking the river and offers a phantastic view to the valley. To embed the winery in the landscape the main parts of the building is situated under ground and the exterior walls were coverd with natural stone (slate) which is the traditional local material for the retaining walls of the terraces. The concept is very minimalistic: as few materials as possible, as few details as possible: The whole building -all walls, floors and ceilings- is built in architectural concrete. Metal parts are made in corten steel.

In Napoles red and white table wines as well as red wine for the Portwine are produced. According to the production process of the wine the grape reception is on top of the building in order to avoid any pumping of the wine. Below is the press area and the barrique stores are on the bottom of the building. All floors are connected with an elevator. The building has low energy standard which is necessary as all storage rooms have to be cooled down to 15°C for all the year. The tasting room opens to a huge patio and has a cantileverd steel terrace overlooking the river.

The existing old house was transformed to an office building by elliminating all walls and floors and creating a huge loft an connetced to the cellar by a tunnel.