F’AUTOR | Chardonnay – Rkatiteli | 2014
chardonnay | rkatsiteli

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.

Tonight we are going to review a wine that is a bit special in its own way, as it is a white blend that is made of chardonnay and rkatsiteli grapes. In case you are not familiar with chardonnay, you might have a real wine problem, but if you are not familiar with rkatsiteli , it’s quite OK, as this is a white grape variety rarely found outside of Eastern Europe. The origin of rkatsiteli is Georgia, but one can find also rkatsiteli wines in Moldova, as it was widely planted in this region by the Soviets in the not so distant past. But enough theory, we present you the wine we have picked for the review tonight: Chardonnay – Rkatiteli 2014 from F’autor.

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

Visual
Pale straw-yellow color with shades of pastel-yellow towards the rim.

Olfactory
The nose is rich, filled mostly with sweet fruit: lemon, straw grass, gooseberry, quince, green apple, kiwi, green bell pepper, acacia flower, a nuanced scent of moist oakwood and some subtle hints of vanilla.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and dry tannin. It tastes herbaceous, woody and savory. This is a quite tannic wine – a bit buttery, quite bold and firm – not your regular everyday wine. The wine has a fair overall balance and it does not lack character and structure, as this is a quite muscular wine.

Aftertaste
The wine has a medium-plus finish and a balanced, a bit bitter, aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 89.7 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.

Conclusion: this is a wine near its top form, ready to drink now, but we do believe that some bottle-ageing would be of major benefit, as in our opinion, the wine’s alcohol content and the tannins are yet to aggressive, and that a bit of smoothness is required. We would recommend to pair this wine with hot and spicy dishes, think Asian, like for example chicken curry, salmon & sweet potato traybake or chicken rice balls & broth, as the tannins and high alcohol content in the wine will complement nicely the spiciness and fat in the food. Enjoy.

WineStatistics tasting results:

F’AUTOR
Chardonnay – Rkatiteli | 2014

grape: | chardonnay | rkatsiteli |

region: Moldova | Valul lui Traian

overall rating: | 89.7 |

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.