Rară Neagră

Te Wā works with small growers, and for the Rară Neagră it names the grower. The fruit comes from the Cojocaru family farm near Cioburciu, on the right bank of the lower Nistru, in the Purcari corner of Ștefan Vodă. The vineyard is two hectares, planted in 2018.

The grapes are picked by hand into 10 kg crates and chilled. After destemming, the must sits cold on its skins for four days, then ferments in stainless steel with a mix of native and selected yeasts. A fifth of the wine spends six months in new Carpathian oak. The rest stays in steel for the same six months, stirred on its lees.

The winery's note on 2023 is brief: sudden spring frosts that delayed flowering, a dry and abnormally hot July and August, and picking from the end of August.

Rară Neagră is one of Moldova's old red grapes, known across the Prut as Băbească Neagră. Here it gets a young vineyard, and only a fifth of it sees oak.