A-WINE | Cabernet-Merlot | 2011
cabernet sauvignon | 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 still reviewing Wine of Moldova for the time being, and we’ve decided to stick to the wine blend theme. There are different types of wine blends, made by the followers of different schools of winemaking, like the new world ideology versus the old world concept, and then, there are the classic Bordeaux blends, made of cabernet sauvignon and merlot grape varieties. Believe it or not, but sometimes less can be more – two grape varieties blended almost to perfections – that’s what French are good at, and it’s no wonder that winemakers all around the world, once in a while, will try to replicate them. This is how we get to the wine that we’ve selected for tonight’s tasting – Cabernet-Merlot 2011 from A-Wine.

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

Visual
The wine has a quite opaque and dense ruby-garnet color, with the rim-color of a clear copper shade.

Olfactory
The nose is rich, with no signs of wine faults. The first nose brings very clear notes of red fruits: sour cherry, red currant, cranberry, red apple and dried cherry. The second nose reveals the more delicate, savory notes of red bell pepper, a bit of tobacco and a very subtle aroma of a light roasted wood – a clear tell that the wine was barrel maturated.

Gustatory
The wine is bone dry, with no hints of residual sugar. It has moderate alcohol level, high acidity and dry tannin. This is a firm, quite zesty and sharp wine, with a pronounced bitter-seedy palate, quite rich and extracted. With a good overall balance, the wine feels fruit-forward and a bit woody – this is more of a new-world type of wine.

Aftertaste
The wine has a quite long, velvety finish, with nuanced bitterness and a bit too much acidity. Even so, the aftertaste is amazingly smooth. This wine would do just fine with any meat-based dishes or some pasta under a cherry-tomato sauce.

This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 88.7 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, we would like to mention that this is a wine that will express itself even better if decanted at least 30 minutes before serving. Also, we’ve noticed that this wine tastes better if served a little warmer than recommended – a quality found mostly on wines, that come from some of the world’s most famous areas, like Bordeaux, Toscana or Napa. There’s something else to add here – A-Wine is a trademark, that is part of Berhord-Team, the same company that is making the famous Molda wines. That said, let us enjoy this one and be proud of Wine of Moldova as a national value – good wines are not a rarity anymore, even here in Moldova.

WineStatistics tasting results:

A-WINE
Cabernet-Merlot | 2011

grape: | cabernet sauvignon | merlot |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 88.7 |

conclusion: fine | highly recommended

____________________________________________________________________________
(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.