PURCARI | Rara Neagra de Purcari | 2015
rara neagra

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 rightly considered history in the making, as it is a 100% indigenous wine – Rara Neagra de Purcari 2015 from Purcari. This is not the first wine of Moldova made of rara neagra grapes, but for sure, it is the one that set the trend for local indigenous wines. Although rara neagra wines can also be found over the so-called border, in Romania, it is in Moldova that the variety exploded to its full potential, displaying great promises to highlight local terroir, like no other variety did before. But let’s not get bored – enough theory, let’s move on to the tasting.
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Take a look at the tasting notes bellow and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Deep but not opaque garnet color, with shades of ripe pomegranate towards the rim.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with red fruits flavours mixed with some spicy notes: nutmeg, overripe sour cherry, leather, ripe red plum, cranberry, red apple, red currant, dried cherry and some hints of overripe pomegranate. An instant later comes secondary and tertiary notes of red pepper, tobacco, light roasted oakwood and some subtle hints of dried cherry tomato.

Gustatory
The wine is extra-dry, with high alcohol level, moderate acidity and ripe tannin. It tastes leathery, lean and rustic, with a nuanced opulence and a medium body. This is a quite muscular, expressive and persistent wine, with overwhelming acidity and mouth-watering tannin. The wine has a fair overall balance and a quite nuanced rustic accent.

Aftertaste
It has a medium finish and a balanced, a bit acrid aftertaste.
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This is definitely a great Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.0 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 wine is a bit too young to drink now, as it is too tart and expressive at the moment, thus a couple more year of bottle ageing are highly recommended. On the other hand it has a very nice, ripe tannin and that mouth-watering rustic accent that is clearly demanding some food pairing. We would recommend to pair this wine with local rustic cuisine, like for example veal ragù or, why not, some beef carpaccio. Enjoy.

WineStatistics tasting results:

PURCARI
Rara Neagra de Purcari | 2015

grape: | rara neagra |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 90.0 |

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.