CARLEVANA | Raritet | Malbec | 2016
malbec
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Today we are going to review a single varietal malbec wine – one of the world’s most underrated grape varieties – Raritet Malbec 2016 by Carlevana. Known for its plump, dark-fruit flavors and smoky finish, malbec typically produces wines that are deep in color, with full-body and high tannins – wines that usually responds well to oak ageing. With elegant notes of black plum, tobacco and hints of violets, malbec offers a great alternative to the higher priced cabernet sauvignon or merlot wines. This wine here is part of the Raritet wine series and it has been aged for 24 months in french oak barrels – a technique widely used in the famous Cahors region of France – the original home of malbec. That being said, let’s skip the theory and move on, straight to the tasting phase!
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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 ruby shades towards the rim of the glass.
Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with red & blue fruit flavours: sour cherry, cranberry, redcurrant, red plum, wolfberry, blackberry, black plum, blackberry, blueberry, candied sour cherry and cherry seeds. A bit later the nose is filled with noble notes of cherry tree wood, lightly toasted oakwood, red pepper, nutmeg and some subtle hints of tobacco.
Gustatory
The wine is dry, with high alcohol level, strong acidity and green tannin. It feels tart, youthful and plump, with a quite acrid, fruity-seedy accent. This is a lean, opulent and angular malbec wine, as it tastes bitter-green and austere, with a quite aggressive acrid-tannic bite on the mouthfeel. The wine has a fair overall balance, as it definitely lacks structure, complexity and harmony on the plate.
Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish and a quite seedy-acrid aftertaste.
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This is definitely a good wine of Moldova and, with a total of 89.7 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, tart and angular malbec wine that is quite off its balance – a wine that definitely needs a couple more years of bottle ageing, as it lacks any form of harmony and finesse on the palate. The wine feels fruity yet seedy, with subtle oak and green tannins – it is too young and too soon to be enjoyed as it was meant to. Overall this is a medium-bodied malbec wine, with a bitter-tart mouthfeel and an acrid finale. We would suggest to pair it with spicy/barbequed meats or dishes with strong flavours and slightly sweet accents, like for example a butter-basted rib eye steaks or a glazed grilled steak, in order to counter-balance all the sharp edges in the wine. Cheers!
WineStatistics tasting results:
CARLEVANA
Raritet | Malbec | 2016
grape: | malbec |
overall rating: | 89.7 |
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.
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