ET CETERA | Aeroplane | Carmenere | 2017
carmenère

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Tonight we are going to review a wine that is held in high regards amongst the wine enthusiasts – Aeroplane Carmenere 2017 by Et Cetera. This is a single varietal carmenère wine that is part of the Aeroplane series and it is the successor of the famous Carmenere 2016 wine. The birthplace of carmenère is Bordeaux, yet it has adapted very well to the climate and soils of Chile, which is now considered the its homeland. Carmenère is a variety that needs a long and sunny growing season to ripen successfully, as it can struggle to ripen in all but the warmest and sunniest sites. If harvested when the grapes are not fully ripe, it may result in wines with a pungent herbaceous character and bitter tannins. Carmenère wines are usually matured in oak in order to soften its tannins and gain more complexity. But enough theory, without further ado – on to the wine tasting!
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

Visual
Pale garnet color with hazy copper shades towards the rim of the glass.

Olfactory
The nose is rich, filled mostly with red fruits and savory flavours: redcurrant, cranberry, sour cherry, red plum, wolfberry, barnyard, cherry tomato, cherry tree wood, red bell pepper, capsicum, wormwood, and some nuanced irony notes. An instant later the nose is filled with notes of oakwood, cherry tree bark, nutmeg and red pepper.

Gustatory
The wine is medium-dry, with high alcohol level, high acidity and fine-grained tannin. It feels tart, round and plump, with a nuanced fruity-savory accent. This is a very lean, smooth and slightly seedy wine, that is made in an old-world, irony-meaty style, with a touch of alcoholic warmth on the mouthfeel. It feels quite complex and well structured, with subtle-elegant herbaceous notes on the finish, yet it does lack a bit of harmony and finesse on the palate. Overall, the wine has a fair balance between primary fruit and oak-infused flavours, with a quite supple, crisp body and mouth-watering acidity.

Aftertaste
The wine has a long finish and a quite pleasing, crisp and plumpy aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine wine of Moldova and, with a total of 90.5 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: overall this is fine example of a carmenère wine that is produced in a subtle, old-world style, with a nuanced herbaceous and savory accent – a quite elegant and seedy wine that is still on the rise and very close to the peak of its form. This is a wine with some aging potential, therefore we would suggest 1 or 2 more years of bottle ageing. Just keep in mind that there are wines that might gain some much desired elegance and finesse with age, but there are also wines that are elegant enough in their yearly stages and age will only take its toll on them. That said, we would recommend to pair this wine with meaty dishes, rich in natural savory flavours, like for example a classic beef tartare or a blue-rare filet mignon steak, so that all those herbaceous notes in the wine would be perfectly complemented by the savory flavours of the dish. Cheers!

WineStatistics tasting results:

ET CETERA
Aeroplane | Carmenere | 2017

grape: | carmenère |

region: Moldova | Stefan-Voda

overall rating: | 90.5 |

maturity: on the rise

conclusion: fine | (highly 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.