After a capricious start of this year´s summer, in the last weeks this season finally showed its true character – with heat of more than 40 degrees, giving us the welcome opportunity to keep an extended siesta in the tradition of our Latin brothers in Italy and Spain – and directed our thoughts and hand towards the fridge and towards white or rosé wines…
But nevertheless, from time to time you need something red on the table, not at the unbearable room temperature, but at the more pleasant temperature of the cellar – means around 15-16 degrees Celsius. In order to be prepared also for these situations, we recently bottled the youngest red child from our winery:
Negru de Drăgăşani 2016
Made of grapes from our Foişor vineyard, picked on 14th September 2016, macerated briefly, fermented spontaneously and aged a couple of months in a large wooden vat, finally bottled on 3rd July 2017 – keeping by this kind of vinification the intense bouquet of fresh fruits and spices of the grapes of Negru de Drăgăşani, backed on the palate by vivid freshness and a dense texture of fine-grained tannins from the grapes´ skins.
In this way a “Negru for the Summer” was born. In order to discover its refreshing character in the best possible way, we recommend you to serve it slightly chilled, at 15-16 °C.
In the last couple of days we enjoyed this wine in the shadow of our well-aerated loggia on top of the Olt Hill, paired with bresaola and coppa from Alba (the Romanian, not the Italian!), some tasty cheese from Mureş valley or with a spicy zacusca, still warm from the charcoal grill. And our phantasy leads us ahead towards Penne all´Arrabbiata, grilled tender cutlet of a young wild boar from our Bibescu vineyard – and at the end of a sumptuous dinner we may open another bottle of Negru de Drăgăşani 2016 to a Mousse au Chocolat, decorated with red peppercorns…
24.8.2017 / Jakob & Ileana Kripp