J.HOFSTÄTTER | Meczan | Pinot Nero | 2012
pinot noir

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Tonight we are going to review a wine that originates from one of the most appreciated winemaking regions in Italy – Alto Adige, which is famous for it’s outstanding wines made of pinot family grapes – pinot nero, pinot bianco and pinot grigio. The wine that we’ve selected for tonight’s review is Meczan Pinot Nero 2012 from Joseph Hofstätter. This is a classic italian pinot noir wine, and the north of Italy, on the footsteps of the Alps mountains, is the most fitting place for a true, italian pinot nero.

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

Visual
The wine has a pure ruby color, light and transparent, with the rim-color of a translucent copper shade.

Olfactory
The nose is strong and insistent, with no signs of wine faults. The first nose brings very clear and nuanced savory notes of sour cherry, cherry tomato, overripe red apple, red jostaberry, red currant and a hint of candied strawberry. Later on, the nose is delighted with some noble notes of tomato leaf, wormwood, limestone and candied watermelon.

Gustatory
The wine is dry with no signs of residual sugar. It has moderate-plus, well integrated alcohol level, high acidity and medium-plus tannin, which makes it taste round, mellow and crisp. This is a light bodied, savory but friendly wine – a bit bitter, a bit opulent, but smooth and elegant as a whole. The wine has a good overall balance – it feels a bit tight and rustic but very well made and quite food friendly.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long-plus finish and a velvety aftertaste. It is a bit bitter and a bit zesty towards the end, but it leaves you with a smooth and lean mouth-feel.

This is definitely a fine Wine of Italy and the overall rating says the same, with 89.5 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 great pinot noir wine, with a clear old world character. There’s a quite smart winemaking technique used while producing this wine: 75 percent of the bunches are destemmed, while the remaining 25 percent are placed whole in the fermentation vats, as a result there is less must contact with the grape seeds and stems, which makes the resulting wine taste less bitter and more round and lean. We would also like to mention that fact, that this wine has been highly appreciated by Meiningers Weinwelt: Pinot Noir International – one of the top pinot noir tasting competition. Pinot noir grape itself is very difficult to grow, maintain and preserve, it is susceptible to weather and diseases, but when managed properly, the resulting wines are an expression of terroir. So why is pinot noir so famous and desired after all? We could not find a better explanation than this: because it’s a pinot noir.

WineStatistics tasting results:

J.HOFSTÄTTER
Meczan | Pinot Nero | 2012

grape: | pinot noir |

region: Italy | Alto Adige

overall rating: | 89.5 |

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.