LACERTA | Blanc de Noir | 2020
pinot noir

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Today we are going to review a rosé wine from the famous Dealu Mare region of Romania – Blanc de Noir 2020 by LacertA Winery. This is a single varietal rosé wine, made of pinot noir grapes, that was vinified in a ‘white style‘, using the so-called ‘Blanc de Noir‘ technique, where the juice from the grapes is separated from the skins as soon as possible in order to avoid pigmentation of the grape must. Rosé wines are usually made by the ‘saignee method‘, when the juice of the red grapes is strained from its skins before it becomes too dark, therefore the winemaker has to remove the red grape skins (the source of the red pigment) when the wine reaches the desired color depth. The trap here lies in the character of the resulting rosé wine, as the focus on color alone might compromise the taste and flavour of the resulting wine. The ‘blanc de noir‘ technique is quite tricky to master, as oftentimes a wine that was meant to be marketed as a white wine is in fact pinkish in color, therefore it is more closer to a rosé wine than an actual white wine. That said and without further ado, let’s take a look at the wine tasting results.
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Take a look at the tasting notes below and our detailed assessment of the wine:

//Visual
color: pale orange color
clarity: bright amber hues

//Olfactory
intensity: rich & sour
fruit profile: sour fruits | berry fruits
__red fruits: sour apples | pink mirabelle | sour watermelon | sicilia orange | wild apples
__berry fruits: wolfberry | rose hips
fruit character: underripe

//Flavor
non fruit: other
__other: moist wood | medicine
primary layer: fruit & other

//Palate
sweetness: dry
acidity: high
alcohol: high
tannin: low
__grip: green
balance: fair
__dominant: acidity
body: opulent | medium-

//Taste
fruit profile: sour fruits
fruit character: underripe
non fruit: other
finish: short
aftertaste: sour

//Scoring
LACERTA | Blanc de Noir | 2020
variety: pinot noir
country: Romania
region: Dealu Mare
rating: 89.0

//Conclusion
maturity: past its prime | on the decline
verdict: nice | simple & fair
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This is definitely a nice wine of Romania and, with a total of 89.0 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.

Verdict: this is a quite tart and sour rosé wine, that is unfortunately past its prime – a wine that has already stepped on the decline slope, therefore we would recommend to drink it sooner rather than later, as it is not going to improve with further ageing. On the nose it displays a mixture of underripe sour and berry fruits in the foreground, followed by a very subtle, citrusy background. On the palate the wine delivers overwhelming acidity, green tannins and quite a touch of alcoholic warmth showing through on the mouthfeel, all of which leads to a sour aftertaste. All in all, this is a quite wide, flat and simple rosé wine that lacks some expressiveness and complexity on the palate in order to be considered a crowd-pleaser.

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