TIMBRUS | Feteasca Neagra | Oak Aged | 2016
feteasca neagra

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Tonight we are going to review a single varietal feteasca neagra wine, which is an indigenous romanian variety with moldovan origins – Feteasca Neagra Oak Aged 2016 by Timbrus. Feteasca Neagra is the most famous grape variety in Romania, one that has not been yet explored at its full potential in Moldova. It can produce bold red wines, that can be compared to new-world cabernet sauvignon, mostly due to their full body and firm structure, wines with pronounced typicity and spiciness. This particular wine has been aged for 12 months in oak barrels in order to gain some much desired elegance and complexity, but let’s skip the theory aspekt and 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
Pale and transparent garnet color, with hazy rubby shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is rich, filled mostly with red fruits and savory flavours: moist wood, sour cherry, redcurrant, beetroot, red cherry, red mulberry, black soil, cranberry, chalk, clay, dry red cherry, dry cranberry, sun dried wood, cherry tree wood, black olives, nutmeg, red pepper and some subtle hints of dust.

Gustatory
The wine is medium-dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and green tannin. It feels spoiled and corked at first, yet, after a couple of minutes of aeration it shows up as a dusty and fruity-savory wine, with nuanced green tannins. This is a quite angular, tart and earthy wine, as it tastes seedy, acrid and quite austere. The wine is off its balance, as it lacks harmony and structure, with a delicate plate and a touch of alcoholic warmth showing through on the mouthfeel.

Aftertaste
It has a medium-plus finish and a seedy-green aftertaste.
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This is definitely a good Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 88.5 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 quite angular and auster wine that is quite a bit off its balance – supposedly in its prime or on the edge of decline – it’s hard to say, as it lacks character and structure. The wine feels woody and irony and it does not hold any promises for further development, as there’s little reason for bottle ageing. Overall the wine feels angular and aggressive, therefore, we would recommend to pair it with spicy meaty dishes, like for example grilled T-bone steak or barbequed tomahawk steak, in order to counter-balance all the sharp edges in the wine with the spiciness of the food. Cheers!

WineStatistics tasting results:

TIMBRUS
Feteasca Neagra | Oak Aged | 2016

grape: | feteasca neagra |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 88.5 |

maturity: in its prime

conclusion: good | 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.