GITANA WINERY | Lupi | 2013
cabernet sauvignon | merlot | saperavi

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 another Bordeaux-style blend with the label ‘Made in Moldova’ – a wine that has acquired a legendary status over the last decade – Lupi 2013 by Gitana Winery. Named after a pack of wolves that settled in the area where the grapes are grown, Lupi (which literally means ‘wolves’) is the winemaker’s flagship wine – a blend of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and saperavi, aged for 24 months in big russian oak barrels, followed by another 6 months in american oakwood casks. That said, without further ado, let’s move on straight to the tasting!
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Noble garnet color with elegant crimson shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with ripe black fruits and leathery flavours: black raspberry, black cherry, ripe black mulberry, black plum, ripe sour cherry, blackcurrant, ripe blackberry, dried fig, black cherry jam, dried cranberry, black mulberry jam and very nuanced leathery notes. An instant later the nose is filled with elegant notes of roasted oakwood, red and black pepper, allspice, sweet tobacco, nutmeg, cigar box and subtle noble hints of cinnamon.

Gustatory
The wine is medium-dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and ripe tannin. This is a real crowd pleaser wine, as it feels slightly sweet, flamboyant and elegant, with a very nuanced fruity-leathery accent. This is a quite extracted, velvety and overripe wine, as it tastes seedy, supple and extremely appealing on the mouthfeel – a fine example of a new-world style wine blend. The wine has a fair overall balance and a well structured, a bit woody and quite grippy mid-palate.

Aftertaste
It has a long finish and a velvety, sweet and seedy aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 91.6 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 extremely appealing wine blend on the summit of its prime form – a wine that can still age for another year or two, yet we would strongly recommend to drink it now, as we consider it the right time to uncork it. The wine has a fine tannic grip on the mouthfeel, leading to an elegant mid-palate and firming on beautifully with a quite velvety finish. Despite all its elegance, this wine lacks a bit of complexity, still, it has a very nice balance between fruit and wood, with the later dominating a bit over the former. In order to amplify its finesse, we would strongly recommend to pair this wine with sweet and spicy meaty dishes, like for example some tournedos rossini, tri-tip with chimichurri or beef carpaccio with soy sauce. Enjoy!

WineStatistics tasting results:

GITANA WINERY
Lupi | 2013

grape: | cabernet sauvignon | merlot | saperavi |

region: Moldova | Valul lui Traian

overall rating: | 91.6 |

maturity: in its prime

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.