CHÂTEAU VARTELY | Winemaker’s Selection | Feteasca Neagra | 2012
feteasca neagra

WineStatistics will be evaluating wines in no particular order on no particular schedule. Just stay tuned and you will never miss one. If the wine is tasted more than once, the rating table will be updated so as to reflect all the new impressions and observations. The logic is simple – the more we taste, the more we learn.

We are still on the Wine of Moldova theme for the time being and we have chosen quite a different wine this time, a 100% indigenous grape variety from Moldova – Winemaker’s Selection Feteasca Neagra 2012 from Château Vartely. It’s a single-variety feteasca neagra wine and even though this is a grape variety that has it’s origins in Moldova, it is hard to admit it, but the truth is that only a few winemakers here in Moldova do grow feteasca neagra grapes.

Let’s take a deeper look at the tasting notes and the wine’s review statistics:

Visual
The wine has a noble, clear ruby color, it is light and transparent, with the rim-color of a crystal-clear ruby shade, which is quite usual for a feteasca neagra wine.

Olfactory
The nose is clean and strong with no signs of wine faults. The first nose brings clear notes of red fruits – sour cherry, ripe red cherry, overripe red apple, pomegranate and brier, then come some sharp notes of black fruits – black plum, black currant and black mulberry, while towards the end come the savory, noble flavors of a medium roasted barique, homemade butter and a whiff of tomato leaf – a very delicate, fine flavor, but one that rounds up the overall complex aroma of the wine.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with just a hint of residual sugar, moderate alcohol level and moderate acidity. Even though the wine has medium, quite friendly tannin, it still tastes bitter – maybe just a little more austere than desired – we would describe it as leafy or seedy-green. The overall balance is good, the wine presents itself as quite light and friendly, it is opulent and flabby – a wine that will satisfy quite a wide range of tastes.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish with a balanced, just a little bitter aftertaste, it is opulent and oily inside the mouth and it is very friendly overall.

This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 88.4 points scored it is right there, among the best wines we’ve tasted so far. Please click on the chart icon on the left in order to get to the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines we’ve tasted to date.

Last but not least, this wine is part of Winemaker’s Selection series – a very well though wine collection, where there are no wines but fine ones. The series includes some very intriguing grape varieties, like malbec and syrah, which are quite rare for Moldova, and some indigenous grape varieties like feteasca neagra and rara neagra. We do really like the idea of a wine series – the way it was conceived, the way it is marketed and we definitely like the way it tastes – it has character, it has personality and, the most important aspect, it has that mysterious something that many wines from Moldova are missing – it has terroir.

WineStatistics tasting results:

CHÂTEAU VARTELY
Winemaker’s Selection | Feteasca Neagra | 2012

grape: | feteasca neagra |

region: Moldova | Codru

overall rating: | 88.4 |

conclusion: fine | highly recommended

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(c) The WineStatistics ratings are based solely on our own knowledge of the world of wine and on our personal wine tastes, which may, or may not, differ from yours – the reader. There are no absolutes of right and wrong in wine appreciation.