Lunar 2016

Movia - Lunar, 2016: Grapes are brought to the cellar and destemmed. After a thorough check, berries are put straight into specially designed barrels with a wider – 25 centimetre opening on top. The fermentation starts spontaneously. We’re talking of a combination of intracellular and spontaneous fermentation with indigenous yeast. There’s a special net inside this barrel that helps to crush the fermenting hat, keeping it moist at all time. When lees and skins start to form the sediment slowly, they stir it “gently”, or as they say, they observe by gently stirring it.

After 8 months of maceration in barrels – oh wait, that’s the reason for 8 moons on the label – the wine is bottled without filtration, keeping the sediment. It then lays in bottles for a minimum of 24 months before coming to the market. This one was bottled in April 2017, and I opened it this January.

Lunar has a clear to hazy (depends on how you decant it) amber colour with a dense texture. The swirl is quickly stopped, with long tears slowly falling on the walls of the glass.

The intense and fine bouquet is mostly fruity. We notice ripe apricot, peach, baked apples, yellow plum, grape berries soaked in alcohol, mango and pineapple crumbs. Then candied orange, dried chamomile, black tea, lemongrass, nettle and thyme. Swirling it int he glass evokes white pepper, toffee, caramel, autumn leaves, and finally flint.

Lunar’s palate is youthful, soft, on the other hand crisply fresh with mineral salinity and pleasant, perceivable tannins derived from the vinification process. A full-bodied, with intense, accentuated elegance and very long persistency.

A wine that can easily be enjoyed now, even though it is a real youngster in need of schooling. It will only develop and mature to fully display its noble character over the following years of proper bottle ageing. Overall it emphases Rebula’s characteristics in an elegant and harmonious accordion of extract, aromas and flavour profile.