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 we’ve carefully preserved in our private collection for those better times, waiting for the day when it will be ready to be uncorked. The wine we are going to review tonight is Shiraz 2012 from Equinox – a single-varietal syrah wine, a variety rarely found in Moldova and one that we are quite attached to, as not only are syrah wines very good at food pairing, but also because those are some of the most powerful and boldest wines one would find. Syrah is native to Rhône Valley, but it found its second identity in Barossa Valley as Shiraz – one variety displaying two different styles of wines. But enough theory, let’s move on with the tasting.
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Take a look at the tasting notes bellow and our detailed assessment of the wine:
Visual
Deep and opaque garnet color, with some noble garnet shades towards the rim.
Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with black fruit: overripe sour cherry, black cherry, blackberry, dried black plum, dark chocolate, black pepper, black mulberry, black currant jam, black cherry jam, black mulberry jam and some hints of incense. An instant later comes secondary and tertiary notes of cloves, roasted oakwood, tobacco and some subtle hints of smoke.
Gustatory
The wine is extra-dry, with high, but well integrated alcohol level, strong acidity and firm tannin. It tastes jammy, spicy and fruity, as this is definitely a new-world type of wine – fruit-forward, tannic and expressive. At the same time the wine does feel a bit tart, but firm and complex overall, with a fair balance between all the elements.
Aftertaste
The wine has a medium finish and a balanced, quite spicy and a bit tart aftertaste.
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This is definitely a great Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.4 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.
Conclusion: this is a wine near its top form with a very good ageing potential. We would recommend to keep it at least one more year uncorked, but if you can’t fight yourself, we can assure you that it will not disappoint you in any form. We would like to mention that the wine has spent 34 months in the barrel, but contrary to our initial expectation, it does not feel spicy, nor hot – not at all. More than that, because of its fruity and jammy profile, this wine is a prefect pairing partner for some sweet sauce based dishes, like for example some honeyed lamb chops or a slow-roasted marmalade pork, as the moderate spiciness in the wine, coupled with its nuanced acidity will complement amazingly well those rich and sweet flavours in the dish – definitely a must try wine.
WineStatistics tasting results:
EQUINOX
Shiraz | 2012
grape: | syrah |
region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda
overall rating: | 90.4 |
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.
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