WineStatistics will be evaluating wines in no particular order on no particular schedule. Just stay tuned and you will never miss one. If the wine is tasted more than once, the rating table will be updated so as to reflect all the new impressions and observations. The logic is simple – the more we taste, the more we learn.
Tonight we are going to review a legendary white wine blend that does not require any introduction – La Petite Sophie 2015 by Gitana Winery. This is one of the best white wines of Moldova and is a blend made of three grape varieties: oaked chardonnay, which forms the body and structure, unoaked feteasca regala, which adds delicateness and elegance, and unoaked riesling, which is responsible for the flavour profile. What does that mean, is that part of the blend went through the malolactic fermentation, a process where the malic acid in the wine is converted into a more softer, lactic acid, thus, the wine becomes less tart and more silky. But let’s get rid of the theory side and move on to the tasting!
Visual
Pastel yellow color with bright topaz-yellow shades towards the rim of the glass.
Olfactory
The nose is strong, filled mostly with sweet fruits, jam and honey flavours: raisin, honey, quince jam, dried fig, ripe melon, white cherry jam, overripe quince, pineapple, dried apricot, persimmon, iris flower, sweet lemon, vanilla, fresh oakwood, honeysuckle and some nuanced notes of botrytis affected grapes.
Gustatory
The wine is dry, with strong alcohol level, high acidity and ripe tannin. This is a firm, bold and expressive wine with a fruity-tropical profile. It tastes woody, elegant and complex, with a touch of alcoholic warmth showing through towards the end of the plate. The wine feels quite zesty and jammy, yet it does display some signs of angularity and slight sharpness on the mouthfeel.
Aftertaste
It has a long finish and a balanced, velvety yet bitter-astringent aftertaste.
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This is definitely a fine Wine of Moldova and the overall rating says the same, with 90.8 points scored it is right there, among the best wines we’ve tasted so far. Please click on the chart icon on the left in order to get to the wine rating page, where you can find all the wines we’ve tasted to date.
Conclusion: this is one of the best white wine blends – bold, elegant and very appealing, with a fruity-tropical profile. That said, the wine has not yet reached its prime form – this is a wine on the rise, as it needs more time to round up (at least 2 more years of bottle ageing) and smoothen its slightly rough edges. The wine has a quite ripe tannic grip on the mouthfeel, leading to a full-bodied palate, closing in beautifully on the finish, where the nuanced honeyed flavors glide alongside those subtle woody notes and gain traction. We would recommend to pair this wine with creamy pasta dishes or light desserts, like for example a shrimp alfredo pasta or some strawberry-peach panna cotta. Cheers!
