Back to my
little Russian supermarket round the corner! This time it was a real premiere
for me. I never ever had wine from Montenegro. I can't really tell you why
they had this Montenegrin wine in a Russian supermarket in Germany!?! Maybe a certain cyrillic connection?!?
Vranac or
Vranec is an autochthons varietal of the central-southern Balkan (Montenegro, Serbia,
Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo) which produces wines with a firm tannic
structure, plenty of potency and extreme lively acid. Apparently the actual
name means something like “black stallion”. I hope it won’t be a very wild one!
Its colour
was really purple, but not thick or totally tinted. It seemed somehow vivid and
not alcoholic or ponderous. The nose had a lot of emergency breaking situation rubber
smell, intense black currant, hints of sweet soy sauce, hay, later maybe some cinnamon
and a lot of nose itching (I sneezed twice) and stinging components (mostly
black pepper and acid). This last and not so joyful impression started fading after an
hour or two. Then the nose appeared to me the way I’d imagine (totally generalized)
a nice, clean, but simple, table wine from somewhere in South-East of Europe.
The taste however was pretty challenging at first! I got a very lot of harsh tannins
and really strong acid the first 90 minutes. A very abrasive, bone dry and
austere wine! Not a lot of fruit! Maybe some black currant, charcoal, hints of cranberry, not such strong flavours of rubber (compared to the bouquet) and
plenty of bitterness + gum pain. So, at first not such an harmonious fellow I might dare
to say! Luckily this changed substantially. The harshness tamed and a
down-to-earth table wine appeared! No miracles happened, but a certain amount
of harmony and balance came into the wine! Still, thousands of miles away from
a fruit bomb or a palate affectionating character. No doubt about that! A nice, tart
and probably honest wine for a hearty ingestion. The concentration was
contenting. The complexity … um ... okay! No signs of overpowerment, no oak’erama
or no tons of alcohol! Not so far away from a decent wine ;-). By far the best
Supermarket Sweep Wine so far!
No comments:
Post a Comment