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, we will be talking about for a very long time – Shiraz 2015 by Equinox. This is a single varietal syrah wine, which is darker, bolder and spicier than cabernet sauvignon and contains high amounts of health-invigorating antioxidants. The wine has been aged for 24 months in french oak barrels and produced in a very limited edition, as only 1100 bottles has been made, thus it is a rarity even here in Moldova. Syrah is a late ripening grape variety that originated in the Rhône Valley of France and which is now the most popular grape of Australia, where it is called shiraz. The old-world syrah wines tend to have more acidity and earthy-herbaceous aromas, while the new-world shiraz wines usually are more fruit-driven with lots of spice. But enough theory – 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 and noble garnet color, not very opaque though, with dark crimson hues towards the rim of the glass.
Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with black fruits and spicy flavours: anise, nutmeg, allspice, black tea, red pepper, black pepper, black mulberry, ripe blackberry, roasted oakwood, ripe black cherry, blackcurrant, dried black plum, cherry tree wood, tobacco, sweetwood and some very nuanced hints of dark chocolate.
Gustatory
The wine is dry, with moderate alcohol level, high acidity and ripe tannin. It feels ripe, seedy and bold, with a very grippy tannic mouthfeel – a real tannic bomb. This is a crisp, firm and spicy wine, as it tastes tart and young – definitely a new-world style syrah wine – with a quite nuanced fruity-woody accent and a complex yet elegant body. The wine has a good overall balanced between fruit and wood, as neither dominates over the other.
Aftertaste
It has a very long finish and an balanced, ripe and seedy-tart aftertaste.
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This is definitely a great Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 92.9 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 definitely a new-world-style syrah wine that is not yet in its prime form – expressive, fruity-tannic and velvety-elegant – a wine that is yet too young to be uncorked, one that requires another 3 to 5 years of bottle ageing. On the mouthfeel it is bold and expansive, with plenty of tannic grip on the palate, which leads to a firm and velvety finish, mixing power with finesse. For the best experience, we would recommend to pair this wine with spicy gastronomy, like for example some a grilled tomahawk rib-eye steak or a new york strip steak with portobello mushrooms, in order to counter-balance all the angularity in the wine and complement those appealing spicy notes. Enjoy!
WineStatistics tasting results:
EQUINOX
Shiraz | 2015
grape: | syrah |
region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda
overall rating: | 92.9 |
maturity: on the rise
conclusion: excellent | (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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