CRICOVA | Vin Virgin | 2015
merlot

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Tonight we are going to review a wine from the winemaker’s ‘Premiul‘ line, that is yet unnoticed by the local consumer – Vin Virgin 2015 by Cricova. This is a single varietal merlot wine – the world’s most underrated grape variety, as it is usually regarded as the underdog to cabernet sauvignon, but make no mistake here – merlot wine is first class. The story of this wine is genuinely simple – its creator is nature itself and, as its name tell us, the winemaker reduced human intervention to minimum, in order to express terroir and variety in the best way possible. But enough theory, on 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 ruby color, quite opaque, with elegant crimson shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with ripe black and blue fruit flavours: black cherry, black plum, blackberry, blackcurrant, sour cherry, black mulberry, black raspberry, black cherry jam and roasted oakwood. An instant later the nose is filled with elegant notes of leather, dried black cherry, dried cranberry, smoked plum, black pepper, nutmeg, sweet tobacco and some insistent hints of sweet wood.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and seedy tannin. It tastes extracted, expressive and round, with a nuanced fruit-forward accent. This is a quite seedy, tannic and ripe wine, as it feels lean, supple and well structured. The wine has a fair overall balance, where primary and secondary aromas fusion nicely into a noble and elegant palate, forming a round and appealing body, that has a nuanced new-world profile on the mouthfeel and a bit of wilderness in it.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish and an seedy, bitter-crisp aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.9 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 a very noble and well structured merlot wine that is still on the rise – one that has yet to reach the summit of its prime form. It has a bitter-tannic grip on the palate, with a touch of alcoholic warmth showing through on the mouthfeel. But what makes this wine stand apart, is its wilderness, as it feels quite flamboyant on the nose, with overripe fruit and jam, yet the wine displays a quite lean and round body at the same time. Drink it now or in the next couple of years (1 to 2 years will suffice) and pair it with meaty dishes that are rich in natural sweetness and umami flavours, like for example mongolian beef steak with garlic and ginger or some honey and garlic beef . Enjoy!

WineStatistics tasting results:

CRICOVA
Vin Virgin | 2015

grape: | merlot |

region: Moldova | Codru

overall rating: | 90.9 |

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.