The Niepoort family has traded and aged Port in the lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia since 1842, but the still wines that now carry the name are largely the work of Dirk Niepoort, who joined the family firm in the late 1980s convinced the Douro's old vines could speak as clearly in dry wine as in fortified. He secured Quinta de Nápoles in the Cima Corgo in 1987, bottled the first Redoma red in 1991, and over the following decades built a range of Douro whites and reds farmed ecologically, with biodynamic practice across much of the estate.

Coche sits at the top of that range, a white conceived in open homage to Burgundy's Coche-Dury and drawn only from the estate's oldest white-grape parcels. Coche draws on a field blend of old vines: rabigato, códega do larinho, arinto, viosinho, and others, averaging more than 80 years of age and rooted in mica-schist on the right bank of the Douro at 600 to 750 meters. At that altitude the acidity survives heat that would otherwise burn it away. The 2021 growing season was among the coolest the Douro had seen in years, and harvest opened on 11 August under high natural acidity and moderate potential alcohol.

The grapes are pressed whole cluster and fermented with indigenous yeasts in French oak, with the 2021 aged in lightly toasted first-fill barrels from François Frères and held close to a year on its lees. The result carries toast-drawn scents of honey, brioche, and dried apricot over a core of fresh lemon, quince, and wild fennel, with a firm line of acidity behind a long, saline close.