Owing to the screen size of your device, you may obtain a better viewing experience by rotating your device a quarter-turn (to get the so-called “panorama” screen view).
owlcroft logo
An Owlcroft Company
web site.


 Click to 
 email us. 


If you like this site,
please post a link to it!

This is…

That Useful Wine Site

Search, or just roll your cursor over the colored boxes farther below.
Advertisements appear before actual Search results;
click the “x” to dismiss Search-results block.

  Advertisement:


  Site navigation:

  Advertisement:


  Site navigation:

The Fetească Neagră Grape


Quick page jumps:


About Fetească Neagră

(Synonyms: Coada Rândunicii, Fetyaska Chernaya, Păsarească Neagră, Poamă Fetei Neagră, Schwarze Mädchentraube.)

Background

Map showing modern Moldova

Fetească Neagră is an old red-wine grape originating in Moldavia (a region that comprises today’s Republic of Moldova plus the Moldova region of Romania). Its plantings have now spread into the surrounding areas of Transilvania and Hungary, though most today comes from Romania.

Fetească Neagră is another of those delightful Eastern European wines that was almost wholly destroyed by the Soviet regime when those nations were “satellites” of Russia, where quantity was the sole criterion, quality apparently having been an unknown concept to the Soviets.

Fetească Neagră wines can cover a broad spectrum of styles, but are probably at their best when made as light, fresh, and fruit-driven, intended for early consumption. Heavier styles, with oaking used to moderate the “heat” from the variety’s inherently high alcohol content, are not reported as great successes. But when well-made as a young-drinking wine, it is considered a success indeed. To quote the eminent wine reviewer Jancis Robinson, “They are typically dry and full-bodied with intense, complex aromas of spice, both red and black fruit, especially ripe plums, and tannins that can become velvety as they age. The variety…can easily be over-oaked.

Factoid: Fetească Neagră is one member of a trio of Fetească wines, the other two being the white-wine grapes Fetească Regală and Fetească Albă, both also rather good.

Return to the page top. ↑


Some Descriptions of Fetească Neagră Wines

Return to the page top. ↑


Some Fetească Neagrăs to Try

(About this list.)

Their are scant offerings of Fetească Neagră available in the U.S., which is a shame. Fortunately, one big nationwide retailer carries a couple of bottlings (both from the same maker).


Image of Recas blue-label bottling. Recaş “plain” Fetească Neagră

These folks bottle many, many different versions of Fetească Neagră, often hard to distinguish. This bottling, with the blue label (as shown at the right) is—so far as we can determine—sold only at Total Wine outlets, and is not listed by Wine Searcher, CellarTracker, or 1000 Corks. We think it equal or superior to their “La Putere”, shown below.



Recaş “La Putere” Fetească Neagră
(This is but one of several bottlings from this maker.)

• This wine’s Wine Searcher “Reviews” page.
• This wine’s CellarTracker review pages.
• Retail offers of this wine listed by Wine Searcher.
• Retail offers of this wine listed by 1000 Corks.

Return to the page top. ↑


For a Splurge

We could find no reasonably available Fetească Neagră wines better enough than those listed above as to justify a “splurge” price.

Return to the page top. ↑



  Advertisement:


  

  Advertisement:


  



Disclaimers  |  Privacy Policy

owl logo This site is one of The Owlcroft Company family of web sites. Please click on the link (or the owl) to see a menu of our other diverse user-friendly, helpful sites. Pair Networks logo Like all our sites, this one is hosted at the highly regarded Pair Networks, whom we strongly recommend. We invite you to click on the Pair link or logo for more information on hosting by a first-class service.
(Note: All Owlcroft systems run on Ubuntu Linux and we heartily recommend it to everyone—click on the link for more information).

All content copyright © 2024 The Owlcroft Company
(excepting quoted material, which is believed to be Fair Use).

This web page is strictly compliant with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) Protocol v1.0 (Transitional) and the W3C Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) Protocol v3 — because we care about interoperability. Click on the logos below to test us!



This page was last modified on Saturday, 30 October 2021, at 11:26 pm Pacific Time.