I attended THU evening, April 22nd, a tasting of three wines from Vinarte organized by La Chambre . For those of you not familiar with this name, La Chambre is a wine store in the Dorobanti area with a great selection of wines from South of France – Languedoc and South of Rhone- and many other Romanian and New World wines.
The shop had a representative of Vinarte present for the event, but unfortunately he did not provide too much information about the products tasted. It’s true we came later than the starting hour of the tasting, my group of four persons, so we probably missed the presentation of the wines. I just had to read the back label myself for information about the wines or the producer.
Prince Matei 2006 Merlot – did not leave a strong impression. The wine has a ruby red color with some discreet dark notes. The nose shows some black fruits, mint with the oak nicely integrated. The wine spent 12 months in oak and another 12 months in bottle before being released on the market. In the mouth the wine is medium body, showing some fruit, different black berries and spices. The wine finishes with a certain astringency in a short aftertaste.
Aniversare Merlot 2006 – The wine has a very nice dark red with purple hues color. Among the wines I tasted so far, generally speaking, some had a tight nose and not revealing anything but then exploding in the mouth with a nice aftertaste, others having a big and complex nose and quickly disappearing in the mouth. Aniversare is just like the latter. The wine has a killer nose. After smelling this wine you are getting ready for a serious ride. The nose reveals notes of plums, chocolate, Indian spices, cocoa, blackberries and a balanced note of integrated oak (the wine spent 12 months in oak). In the mouth the wine is medium body, showing integrated oak, black fruits, blackberries, chocolate but disappears on the mid palate. The wine is hollow exactly when you are expecting it to balance that amazing nose. The aftertaste is short to medium. I was really disappointed that in the mouth the wine could not deliver the same complexity as in the nose. I believe it is already the third time I have this wine this year and each time I tasted I got exactly the same impression of the wine vanishing on the mid palate. Good but not great.
Castel Soare 2004 – Just like the other two wines, Soare spent 12 months in oak. The producer doesn’t mention what kind of oak they used for aging on none of the three bottles. The wine has a dull red color with some slight notes of oxidation. The nose reveals blackcurrant with hints of green vegetables, leather and a very nicely integrated oak. In the mouth the wine is light to medium body showing blackcurrant, cedar, violets and leather. The wine has a short to medium aftertaste finishing without any astringency which I really liked. It is a good but not great wine. One of the girls present at the tasting confessed that she usually expects more from a Cabernet Sauvignon of this level and frankly, I agree with her.
As a conclusion on the wines: I was surprised how different the two Merlot’s were. I don’t know if these two wines are produced from grapes harvested from the same area or different as both wines are aged for the same 12 months period in oak. The gentleman present for the event from Vinarte did not explain this.
The WOTN (wine of the night) for most of the people present at the tasting was Aniversare Merlot. For me, that would be the wine I would buy from Vinarte. The question that remains for VINARTE is where did the art for making wine go?
Thanks for reading…
Dear Sir,
I am not a 100% connoisseur, but definitively I am a fan of Vinarte wines, especially the high-end series.
Aparte of this, I have very good relations with Vinarte’s top management and I am realy surprised that they have sent a pearson with low knowledges about the wines to be presented in a tasting in downtown Bucharest location. Accidents may happen to anyone, but stil,l have my reserves on this issue.
Fyi:
Prince Matei comes from Vanju Mare
Aniversare Merlot comes from Dealu Mare
Soare originates to Samburesti region.
All this small bits of informations you should find on the bottle’s back label.
Anyway, each individual fells and interpretates different and discover, or not, fragances, smells, aftertastes.
I am reading your notes and find them originals and bucking the trends in some cases, pointing me up that you love good wines. Good Luck
Dear Sir,
Thanks a lot for posting this comment. I am very glad to see that people also react to my notes.
Coming back to Vinarte and their representative I do not want to be malicious when I said that we didn’t get the appropriate information. As I said my group of 4 persons out of a total of 7-8 people that attended the tasting (a little bit more than 50% audience), we arrived about 1h later than the scheduled event. Therefore we probably missed on the presentation. I am not trying to point fingers at anybody I am sure he knew his products. Perhaps our communication was just not proper, but I believe when you are there to promote your products you should make at least a brief summary of their key characteristics.
Thank you very much for clarifying:
Prince Matei comes from Vanju Mare
Aniversare Merlot comes from Dealu Mare
Soare originates to Samburesti region
It seems that Dealu Mare has great potential to produce good wines. I think, as I posted the picture of the back labels above, that both Aniversare and Prince Matei have written DOC-CMD Dealu Mare Zoresti. So it is easy to think that both wines are produced in the same vineyard.
You are absolutely right that taste is a very personal thing. Every person has his own memory of aromas. I would like to believe that my taste and smell is the norm. But then we both know that is a fallacy.
I am not sure which trend you say I am bucking. If you could be so kind and explain more I could also give my point of view.
Thanks a lot for reading and replying to my post. Please feel free to post comments in the future again. I believe constructive feedback is the key to progress.
Kind regards,
Cosmin
Lets use our names, so my name is Andrei.
You are the first person who criticised (in a constructive way) the Vinarte wines. All I have seen by now have been only, lets sau aplauses. I appreciate those oppinions that are not 100% integrated in the chorus of those who appreciate for different reasons aproduct what ever would be that product and especially wines. I can not be 100% agree with you, because I always compare Romanian wines with Romanian wines, may be a personal mistake. My favorite red wine is Enira Reserve and BV, but also love Chilean and Argentinian red wines. I am also a fan of Alsace white wines, and a particular Gewurtz Traminer from Chile’s Bio-Bio Valey (absolute fantastic for my taste). Despite the fact that I am working somewhow related to wine industry (owning and organizing a wine fair in Bucharest), I do not have the opportunity to taste all the wines (with credits from people like you and I trust less in local authorised tasters) existing on the local market. This is the reason that I read regullary all posts on the blogs about or related with wines to make a image abot the wines which can say something or which may be presented to my future events.
sorry I forgot to say brgds
It is nice to meet you Andrei.
Again thanks a lot for posting the comments. I have to admit from Enira I drank so far only Easy, Cabernet 2007, Enira and Enira Reserva 2006. I did not drink BV nor Syrah but I am looking forward to taste them.
I am trying to keep an open mind about wines and preferences and not to anchor myself in any. For me a good wine should have some kind of complexity on the nose and in the mouth and should have at least a medium aftertaste. Generally I appreciate the balance in the wines. So this is my norm to decide whether the wine is good or not. Why not be fair and apply the same norm to all wines including Romanians.
I did not taste Gewurtztraminer from Chile’s Bio-Bio Valey so far, but will be looking for it from now. Can you please recommend me a producer? I will not comment anything on authorized tasters. I believe the result for the 1st place at the recent fair in Timisoara is clear enough for how far back in the past we still are.
I think you are very fortunate to organize wine fairs as you get the chance to meet interesting people and taste wines. Perhaps if more International producers will be invited that will stimulate domestic producers to focus more on quality.
My belief is that there is a need for unbiased wine reviewers to have the courage to write objectively about the wines they drink and not praise a wine just because they spent a lot of money for it or just because everybody else is praising it.
I will be looking forward for more of your valuable comments.
Regards,
Cosmin
Hi Cosmin,
Tks for your comments. The three pillars for judging a wine, you have mentioned, should be the base for everyone, but how I have said in some comments, for many (almost 75%) of our dear fellow citizens, the main criteria when they drink wine is to be a lot and having enough alchool to go dizzy fast, even they use soda (for sprit), by the way there is any english term for sprits?
I shall tell you a real comic story happened several years ago, when beeing with my family in Bulgaria’s sea side togheter with a former Bucharest city hall mair (also with his family) we stoped at a very nice restaurant in Nessebar with a beatiful sea view and good sea food and an impresive list of wines. So my compangnion ordered a white wine (don’t remember exactly what) and I ordered a Mavrud. So the both wines came, the starters came, and my fellow ask the waiter, in a mix of english french and german, to make a sprits when the guy wanted to fill thehis glass.
The waiter did not understand what my compagnion would want, and ask him once again in a relativelly decent english what is the requirement. The answer was short, “Please do the sprits”, commenting in Romanian “amicul e un dobitoc” refering to the waiter. Sounds like in Caragiale. But the catastrophe has come when the waiter reply, “Sorry sir , but I am a waiter, not a medical assistant”! In the first moment , my compagnion, was shocked. I told him, very smooths and easy, to not make him emmbarased, that in german sprits means injection, and probably the waiter understand a bit, or a lot, german and for him sprits equals injection. So I was put in the position to ask the waiter to mix soda with the wine.
So you can see that this is the characteristical behaviour for many Romanians. And that’s the answer why the big local producers flood the market with all liquid junks. I am visiting Itally relativelly often, once a year, and when I go in the supermarket I notice that the cheap wines are bought by the Romanians, Magrebians, Russians etc, people coming from non-EU countries or from EU new-entered countries. The difference between Italy and Romania, is that In Itally is forbiden by law to make wine from watter, molasses (hope that is the right word for melasa), and chemical flavours. So, as you know, you can buy a wine worth 1 euro, in Italy, but you are sure that wine comes from grapes.
have a nice Sunday, and wait new posts.
brgds Andrei
Andrei Says:
Prince Matei comes from Vanju Mare
Prince Matei comes from Dealu Mare, Villa Zorilor cellar. It’s the same cellar which produce Aniversare.
From Vanju Mare, Starmina cellar, comes Prince Mircea.
@Og
tks for clarification. and I am sorry for the mistake.
Great story Andrei. Really funny stuff
Nu inteleg de ce scrieti in engleza? Exersati? Ca nu cred ca apare un strain sa comenteze vinurile Vinarte. Poate daca era vorba despre Chateauneuf du pape sa zicem. Si apropo de Italia si de “you can buy a wine worth 1 euro, in Italy, but you are sure that wine comes from grapes”. Bull shit. Sunt o multime de “fake”-uri ” just for tourists” in cramele D’Abruzzo. Succese.
Asa s-a nimerit Bogdan sa purtam dialogul. Cu ocazia asta am si exersat de ambele parti. Nu stiu cum e cu vinurile de 1 Eur nu prea consum de obicei. Succese si tie.
Nici eu nu consum, Ideea era legata de “cinstea” italienilor.
Natura umana este cam aceeasi peste tot deci nu surprinde pe nimeni provenienta dubioasa a unor vinuri.
Cat despre tourist traps e plin peste tot. Desi am impresia ca au mai mare succes printre americani.
Surprinde pe cineva problema cu americanii? Just money. No culture.