PURCARI | Negru de Purcari | Vintage | 2013
cabernet sauvignon | saperavi | 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 perform a trip into the past and re-evaluate a wine that we’ve already reviewed before – Negru de Purcari Vintage 2013 from Purcari. This wine is a classic Bordeaux-style blend, a wine that has gained a legendary status over the years. Made of cabernet sauvignon, saperavi  and rara neagra grape varieties, harvested and selected by hand, produced using traditional methods and aged for 18 months in french oak, this wine is nothing less than a bottled art, where saperavi is playing the role of a violin in an orchestra, adding those mesmerizing velvety-leathery notes, while rara neagra is the cello, bringing on the local terroir and those subtle rustic accents. That said, let’s find out how the wine has evolved during the last 12 months since our last review!
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

(rev.2019)

(rev.2018)

Visual
Deep and noble garnet color, with shades of purple towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with ripe black fruits and leathery flavours: blackberry, blackcurrant, black cherry, blueberry, black raspberry, violets, ripe blue plum, leather, cherry tree wood and some quite nuanced irony-meaty notes. An instant later the nose is filled with elegant notes of medium roasted oakwood, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, tobacco, black soil dust, anise and some subtle hints of charred wood.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and firm tannin. It feels bold, yet elegant and velvety, with a nuanced fruity-savory accent. This is a firm, tannic and expressive wine, as it tastes ripe and seedy, with a nuanced new-world accent and a quite grippy mouthfeel. The wine has a fair overall balance, as it feels noble and well structured, with a crisp and austere accent towards the end of the plate.

Aftertaste
It has a long finish and a balanced, bitter-seedy, yet quite velvety aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 91.5 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 firm, elegant and very noble wine that, despite its age, has yet to reach its prime form, therefore we would suggest for 1 or 2 more years of bottle ageing. It has plenty of tannic grip on the palate, with a textured character to the mouthfeel and a touch of alcoholic warmth showing through, with some mouth-watering acidity and a lovely texture, that make this a wonderful food wine. In order to amplify its elegance, we would recommend to pair this wine with meaty dishes that are soft on texture and rich in flavour, like for example maple glazed lamb chops or blue-rare tournedos rossini – dishes that will enrich the leathery-spicy flavours in the wine. Enjoy!

WineStatistics tasting results:

PURCARI
Negru de Purcari | Vintage | 2013

grape: | cabernet sauvignon | saperavi | rara neagra |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 91.5 |

maturity: on the rise

conclusion: fine | highly recommended

(rev.2019)
(rev.2018)

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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.