CHÂTEAU VARTELY | Individo | Rara Neagra | 2017
rara neagra
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Today we are going to review another single varietal rara neagra wine, which is an indigenous moldovan variety with romanian origins – Individo Rara Neagra 2017 by Château Vartely. The rara neagra variety is also known as babeasca neagra in Romania, and it is famous for its ability to highlight aspects of terroir, and it usually produces light to medium-bodied wines with cherry, cranberry and pronounced leather flavours. The wine has been aged for 12 months in oak barrels and is also part of the ‘Individo‘ wine series, that is a set of 9 wines, each one with its own identity and personality. But let’s get rid of the theory and. without further ado, let’s move on – straight 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 and transparent garnet color, with copper-grey hues 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, cherry tomato, red bell pepper, wolfberry, red apple, tomato leaf, wormwood and nuanced irony hints. An instant later the nose is filled with notes of red pepper, moist oakwood, cloves and some subtle hints of studded leather.
Gustatory
The wine is medium-dry, with strong alcohol level, high acidity and rough tannin. It tastes angular, austere and green, with an opulent and quite flabby body, which forms a rough palate and a bitter-seedy, a bit acrid mouthfeel. The wine feels a bit aggressive, as it has overwhelming alcohol, that creates an unpleasant, burning sensation. This is a wine that lacks balance and harmony between its elements, thus it feels a bit too wide and too opulent overall.
Aftertaste
The wine has a medium-plus finish and a quite rough and a bit warm aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fair wine of Moldova and, with a total of 88.5 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 fair rara neagra wine – fruity-savory, opulent and austere – a wine that definitely lacks structure and harmony on the palate. Even if it can resist some more bottle ageing (12 to 18 months), we would not recommend it at all, as the wine does not hold any promises for further improvement. This is a wine that should be enjoyed today rather than tomorrow. Indeed, there are wines that might gain some elegance with age (if you’re lucky enough) while losing most of the flamboyance, but there are also wines that does not have the prerequisites for bottle ageing, thus enjoying them young and fresh is the better idea. That said, we would suggest to pair this wine with dishes that are rich in natural umami flavours with nuanced gamey-wild accents, like for example a medium-rare marinated venison steak or a very-rare ribeye steak with butter. Noroc!
WineStatistics tasting results:
CHÂTEAU VARTELY
Individo | Rara Neagra | 2017
grape: | rara neagra |
overall rating: | 88.5 |
maturity: on the rise
conclusion: fair | (quite good)
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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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