PURCARI | Maluri de Prut | 2016
feteasca neagra | rara neagra

We will be evaluating wines in no particular order on no particular schedule. Just stay tuned and you will never miss our reviews. If the wine is tasted more than once, the rating table will be updated so as to reflect all the new impressions and observations.

Today we are going to review a wine with a story behind the bottle, a story about people that were forced to live very close to each other, yet apart at the same time – Maluri de Prut 2016 by Purcari. A wine blend made of  two indigenous grape varieties – feteasca neagra and rara neagra and aged for 6 months in french oak barrique – this wine is a homage to all those, who have a dream that one day they will become one culture, one nation. This is a wine story dedicated to all the Romanian people, separated by the Prut river, which became a border that should have never existed. That being said, let’s skip the theory side and, without further ado, let’s move on, straight to the wine tasting!
___________________________________________________________________________
Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Dark and deep ruby color, with noble garnet shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with black fruit flavours: blackcurrant, blackberry, black plum, ripe sour cherry, black cherry, black soil dust, moist wood and smoked plum. An instant later the nose is filled with notes of black pepper, anise, nutmeg, allspice, smoke, wormwood, roasted oakwood, cloves and some hints of asparagus.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and green tannin. It feels bitter, seedy and austere, with a quite green accent. This is a tart, fruity-herbal and quite angular wine, as it tastes rough and sharp – definitely off its balance – it lacks both, harmony and elegance. This is a quite youthfull and aggressive wine blend, with lots of alcoholic warmth on the mouthfeel and a fair overall balance – a wine that requires at least 30 minutes of aeration prior tasting.

Aftertaste
The wine has a medium-plus finish and a seedy, bitter-astringent aftertaste.
___________________________________________________________________________

This is definitely a good wine of Moldova and, with a total of 89.5 points scored, this wine is right there, among the best wines we’ve rated so far. Check our complete database on the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines that we have tasted and reviewed or go to the about us page and find out more about our exquisite rating system.

Conclusion: this is a quite youthful, angular and auster wine blend that is quite a bit off its balance – a wine that lacks harmony and elegance – one that requires at least 2 or 3 more years of bottle ageing. Overall this is a nunced wine, with a bitter-tart mouthfeel and a seedy-tannic finale. Our suggestion is to pair it with spicy or barbequed meaty dishes, like for example a grilled asian skirt steak or a butter-basted rib eye steak, in order to counter-balance all the sharp edges in the wine with the spiciness of the food. Noroc!

WineStatistics tasting results:

PURCARI
Maluri de Prut | 2016

grape: | feteasca neagra | rara neagra |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 89.5 |

maturity: on the rise

conclusion: good | (recommended)

___________________________________________________________________________
© 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. Just remember that there are no absolutes of right and wrong in wine appreciation.