VINARIA NOBILA | Merlot | 2016
merlot

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Today we are going to review a single varietal merlot wine – the world’s most underrated grape variety, as it is usually regarded as the underdog to cabernet sauvignon – Merlot 2016 by Vinaria Nobila. This wine is the successor of the famous Merlot 2014 and it’s part of the winemaker’s flagship wines series, all of them being aged in new oak barrels, because merlot wine is first class and it usually responds very well to oak ageing. Cool climate merlot is more structured, with higher tannins and more earthy flavors like tobacco and tar, while warm climate merlot is more fruit-forward and tannins are less prevalent. That being said, let’s skip the theory 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
Noble, but not opaque ruby color, with elegant garnet hues towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with black and red fruit flavours: ripe sour cherry, ripe black plum, overripe redcurrant, black mulberry, black cherry, leather and some delicate hints of wood polish. An instant later the nose is filled with notes of black pepper, cloves, nutmeg, roasted oakwood, tobacco, cherry tree wood and subtle hints of cinnamon.

Gustatory
The wine is dry, with strong alcohol level, strong acidity and green tannin. It feels rough, bitter and austere, with a quite seedy-sharp accent. This is a green, tart and quite angular wine, as it tastes supple yet aggressive on the mouthfeel – definitely off its balance, as it lacks harmony and elegance, with wood dominating over the fruit. This merlot wine has a nuanced touch of alcoholic warmth on the mouthfeel and a poor overall balance.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish and a rough, green and sharp aftertaste.
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This is definitely a good wine of Moldova and, with a total of 89.4 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 rough and angular merlot wine that is quite a bit off its balance – a wine that is not yet there, at its best, yet one that is hard to predict as of when it will get there, as it lacks harmony and any form of finesse on the palate. The wine feels woody and seedy, with oak dominating over the fruit and the tanin on the green side, therefore it does not hold any promises for further development in the bottle. Overall this is a full-bodied merlot wine, with a bitter-tart mouthfeel and a sharp tannins. We would suggest to pair it with spicy or barbequed meats or dishes with strong flavours, like for example a butter-basted rib eye steaks or some crespelle alla fiorentina, in order to counter-balance all the sharp edges in the wine with the flavours of the food. Cheers!

WineStatistics tasting results:

VINARIA NOBILA
Merlot | 2016

grape: | merlot |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 89.4 |

maturity: on the rise

conclusion: good | (recommended)

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© 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.