Published by Jeremy.
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Our experience with Moldovan wine is, admittedly, quite limited. When you can find it in the USA (which is more like an “if you can find it”), the options have been quite limited.
So when we ran into a nearly nine year old bottle of Fautor Winery Negre made with Feteasca Neagra and Rara Neagra (Babeasca Neagra) that came with exceptionally high reviews, we knew we had to grab it.
This is one of those bottles that was so good we'd grab another to chuck in our cellar for another decade or so. Don't worry if you don't have the patience to wait for this one, because it was quite the delicious bottle right now, too.
Decadent Red Blend With Fateasca Neagra
This blend of Feteasca Neagra and Babeasca Neagra was medium garnet in color with medium(+) aromas of dried black cherry, clove, cacao, black pepper, green bell pepper, tobacco, cedar, forest floor, blackberry, and vanilla.
On the palate, it was dry with high acidity, medium(+) smooth tannin, body, flavor intensity, medium alcohol, and a long finish. We had notes of blackberry, black cherry, blueberry, vanilla, cedar, smoke, tomato leaf, cranberry, tobacco, leather, and wet stone.
While this one was already almost nine years old, the impressive tannin structure of this wine and fresh fruit characteristics suggest it could age for many more years (and we would likely not have wanted to drink it any younger!).
Fateasca Neagra Food Pairing – Pork Chops with Mushroom Pan Sauce
We paired this aged Moldovan red wine with sous vide pork chops topped with red wine and mushroom pan sauce. This was an excellent pairing for the wine as the fat in the pork chops cut through the tannin and the sauce on top caused a spike in flavors of caramel, cacao, and vanilla while muting the fruit ever-so-slightly.
The pairing also highlighted the silky smooth tannins on this wine as well which were quite pleasing when less prominent due to the fat.
Score 4 / 5
We'd buy another bottle of this one.
To be honest, this wine was a surprise in all the best ways possible. It was a beautiful bottle that was just starting to show its full potential at nine years old. We'd love to have another bottle to age for another 5-10 years if we could, but if you can't wait and want to drink this one now, well, its current age is worth it too. Now all we have to do is figure out when we can make it to Moldova to visit this one.
Fautor Winery is located in Tigheci village in Moldova. We purchased this bottle locally and enjoyed it in 2025.
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