PURCARI | Vinohora | 2015
rara neagra | malbec

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.

The wine we are going to review tonight is one of those, with a story behind the bottle – Vinohora 2015 by Purcari. This is the successor of the Vinohora 2014 wine and is part of the ‘Vinohora’ wine series, which is a set of three wines, each one with its own personality and character. The philosophy of this series is to marry the indigenous varieties of Moldova with famous international ones. The Vinohora red blend is a moldo-argentinian hora, which combines the velvety delicateness of rara neagra with the elegance and passion of malbec – the variety that feels at home at the foothills of the Andes Mountains. But enough theory, without further ado, let’s get straight to the tasting!
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Deep purple-garnet color, with indigo-gray shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with black and blue fruits: blue plum, blueberry, iron, black mulberry, blackberry, black cherry, black plum, blackcurrant, marionberry, sour cherry, lolyberry, wildberry and black raspberry. An instant later the nose is filled with very nuanced notes of leather, light roasted oakwood, red pepper, dried cranberry, sweet tobacco, black tea and some elegant hints of nutmeg.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with moderate alcohol level, high acidity and fine tannin. It feels lush, lean and elegant, with a nuanced and youthful fruity accent. This is a quite wide, opulent and a bit acrid wine, as it tastes seedy-tart and supple. The wine has a fair overall balance, with a fine-grippy feeling on the mouthfeel and  quite concentrated palate.

Aftertaste
It has a medium-plus finish and an balanced, tart and seedy aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.5 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.

Conclusion: this is a very fine and elegant wine that is still on the rise – too young to drink now as it still lacks harmony and a bit of character, with overwhelming acidity, that has yet to settle down. We would recommend 2 to 3 more years of bottle ageing, so that the wine will get closer to its prime form, as the potential is definitely there. Despite its youthfulness, the wine has fine-grained tannic grip on the palate and a concentrated-fruity accent, mixing power with finesse. We suggest to pair this wine with fat-rich meaty dishes with smooth texture, like for example a pan-seared steak with garlic, butter and mushroom cream-sauce or a rib-steak with chimichurri. Enjoy!

WineStatistics tasting results:

PURCARI
Vinohora | 2015

grape: | rara neagra | malbec |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 90.5 |

maturity: on the rise

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.