There seems to be some interest in Romanian wine. Now, one can probably write 100 posts on such a topic, so where to start? There are grapes, there are wines, and there is history. I will try a quick general introduction, and then will get more specific in potential future posts. Wine, like most things in this world, was invented on the present day territory of Romania by the dacians, although this fact has been covered up historically by other jealous people wanting to steal our legacy. Georgians and Armenians and middle easterners and the like. All lies. Romanian had the first and the best wine. It is known. That being said … to procede.

I could start with a bit about red wine. Red is the colour of the blood that was spilled defending the land and such pseudo patriotic nonsense. I will not. Although Romanians, believe you me, are very patriotic about their wine and consider it among the best. This may have been somewhat true for some wines 150 years ago, before it stagnated significantly and others – especially New World producers – had a bit of aggressive growth going on. This feeling has decreased somewhat in recent years which in turn has led to more imports – a good thing, because more wine variety and a bit of extra competition made the locals pick up their game.

This may break the hearts of some of our fine readers, but communism was not exactly beneficial to the wine industry – or any other. I have to be honest with you guys, communism sucks on all possible levels. Quality wine is bourgeois, comrades. The wine industry was devastated and reduced to producing cheap, low-quality wine, often with added sugar and artificial flavoring, which along with Bulgarian wines were drunk in Western Europe as wine for students with a very tight budget and a non-existent palate.

Map from revino.ro

The state controlled the wine, and while there were, like in all fields, a few passionate and honorable people who did a good job, because it was their nature, more were not thus. There were some wine research institutes that actually did great work, it must be said. But alas, they were in the minority. And, like in many areas in communism, there was laziness and theft. When it came to working, well, it is not my vineyard. When it came to taking, well, it belongs to all of us. Wine was not easily found in stores, nothing was, so people developed their home wine-making, a legacy which persists, producing bad wines in large quantities.

Then communism fell. And things, at first, got worse, which is to be expected in case of massive social upheaval. Many vineyards were abandoned. Many were split in minor parcels as part of distributing land to peasants. Many were simply uprooted. The wineries were closed or privatized. Many times the former workers of the agricultural cooperatives stole everything they could, and stainless steel – quite used in the wine business – was high on that list. It was mostly a disaster.

But then, after the first 10 years, slowly, too slowly if you ask me, things got better. There was a bit of a renaissance in the last 15 years or so, with more and more good wines produced. This was due to a significant inflow of both private investments, from Romanians and companies from the EU alike, and European Union funding. This led to a lot of replanting of vines and rebuilding wineries.

Some of the first doing quality were foreign. S.E.R.V.E was among the first, owned by a French count named Guy Tyrel de Poix since 1993. Oprișor is another, owned by the German Reh Kendermann group. Vinarte was created by a joint group of Romanians, Italians and French. Davino, probably the top producer, was started by a Romanian. Prince Stirbey was a continuation of an old Romanian noble family, but Baroness Ileana Kripp-Costinescu lived in Germany during communism and came with funds from there. Halewood is a British company that came here to make wines for England. Mihail Rotenberg was among the Jewish Romanians who was allowed to leave for Israel – probably after the Government got paid, made his money in engineering, and came back to Romania to make wine.

Rotenberg

While you may say many a things of the EU, the point I would make is this. If you happen to be in it, subject to all the rules and such, you might as well make the best of the funding available. This may split libertarians, but I am of a view that if the state is going to tax and spend, it is better to at least get something out of that spending. And the wine industry is one of the few areas where Romania, notoriously bad at getting EU funding due to massive corruption and incompetence, got 100% of available funds.

There was, in truth, some over-investment, as often happens in high growth areas, and also excessive expectations. Many expected to get their investment back fast and make a profit. They did not take the view we are building a multi-generational business, like many quality wineries are. Hoping to make a quick profit, most new vineyards wanted to make wine for the so called premium sector, which meant expensive rather than you know… good. There was a lot more premium wine than the market could bare. It was also hard to compete with outside producers, which had been investing for hundreds of years.
There were other issues. It is difficult to make great wine off 5 year old vines. Many of them talked of terroir when the vineyard was on its first wine. If we accept the terroir thing, we must also accept it takes time, years, to understand the soil, the micro-climate, to experiment and find a way to express the terroir. This is why talk of terroir is bullshit in at least 90% of cases.

In the last few years a sort of balance was achieved, more and more good wine appeared at reasonable prices. Most new entries in the last 5 years were not “premium”. It is still hard to compete with the old world for tradition and the New World for quantity and popularity, but things are moving in the right direction.

One mistake, in my view, with all this replanting was that mostly international grapes were planted. It is very hard to compete in the world market making one more Cabernet. It would have been much better to focus on local grape varieties. Some do, but not as many. Planting Touriga Nacional in Romania when you have yet to master the local varieties may be a bit of a rush.

Overall, Romania is a decent country for wine, geography wise. The soils, the climate, the sunshine hours are all pretty good. There is a risk of late spring frosts, but that is true for most of Europe. There is also, compared to counties like Chile, more variability from year to year, which means the wines are vintage dependent, not the same, but this is not always a bad thing. In most areas, summers are generally of the hot and dry varieties, which can limit the range of wines you can make. But there are a few cooler zones here and there.

Most of the wines regions of Romania are currently in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and some plateaus in Transylvania. This all covers a good bit of the country. Other regions are along the Danube, in Dobrogea close to the Black sea. And pretty much all over, really. To drop some names based on Romanian regions, in Muntenia there is Dealu Mare is one of the main red wine areas, close to the cities of Ploiesti and Buzau. In Oltenian is Drăgășani on the Olt river, Samburesti and a few others. There is Murfatlar and Ostrov and Sarica in Dobrogea by the sea. Vrancea, Cotnari and Odobesti are in Moldova. In Transylvania there is Tarnave and Miniș-Măderat and more. In Banat the main one is Recas. There are dozens more besides these, and not the time or space to cover them all.

Some people, in a case of being amusingly very wrong, claim Dealu Mare as the Bordeaux of Romania, as it is on the 45th parallel, same latitude as Bordeaux. Let’s ignore the different soil, different exposure, different accumulated heat, different sunshine hours, different rains, lack of the oceanic influence Bordeaux has and more. It is the same, really.

To close this long post, I will give some Romanian wine producers I like and some I do not. Producers I like are Davino, Stirbey, SERVE, Vinarte, Bauer, Ferdi, Oprisor, Rotenberg, and Wine Princess. Second tier producers Avincis, Petrovaselo, Vitis Metamorfosis, Corcova, Licorna, Segarcea. I would avoid Murfatlar, Jidvei, Cotnari, Vincon, Ostrov, Pietroasele and others I will not list.

So I guess this is it for the first one. Let me know if for the next you want something about grapes and actual wines or a bit more history and culture.