VINARIA NOBILA | Merlot | 2012
merlot

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 tasting Wine of Moldova for quite some time and we’ve decided to raise the bar a bit here – this time we will be back to the world’s most underrated grape variety – merlot. The wine that we are going to review today is one of those wines that leaves you speechless in disbelief – Merlot 2012 from Vinaria Nobila. This is a world class merlot wine – it is so well balanced that one may take it for a blend, but let’s not rush it, let’s take things one at a time.

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

Visual
The wine has a pure, noble garnet color, it is dense and opaque, with the rim-color of a clear garnet shade.

Olfactory
The nose is clean and strong with no signs of wine faults. The first nose reveals strong notes of black fruits – sour cherry, black plum, dried cherry, dried plum, blackcurrant, blackberry, pomegranate and black mulberry. The second nose brings clear notes of a medium roasted wood, cinnamon, black tea, tobacco, spice and a hint of black chocolate.

Gustatory
The wine is dry with no hints of residual sugar. It has high, but well integrated alcohol level, high acidity and dry tannin. This is an elegant and quite complex wine: just a bit seedy, with well nuanced oak flavor, dense and expressive. The overall balance is good – the wine is fruit-forward, elegant and extracted, with a highlighted tannic body and refined palate.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish with a velvety, just a bit bitter, aftertaste, and a persistent, but well structured, ending.

This is definitely a great Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.2 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, it is to be mentioned that this is a wine that is not having a much deserved appeal here in Moldova, on the contrary, it is highly under-appreciated and quite unknown even among wine enthusiasts. On the positive side of things, it takes only one bottle of this wine to fall in love with, and sip after sip, you will discover the true terroir of a world class merlot wine made in Moldova. We are definitely impressed.

WineStatistics tasting results:

VINARIA NOBILA
Merlot | 2012

grape: | merlot |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 90.2 |

conclusion: great | a must try

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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.