Wine & wellness

~ in primul rand, Gyula inseamna curatenie, flori, bun gust

~ parcul cu bazine (termale si cu apa normala) nu are nimic din agitatia cu care suntem obisnuiti pe plajele noastre

~ in week-end, coada la bilete. Majoritatea vizitatorilor sunt romani.

~ detaliu Gyula

~ dorinta de frumos sau cum se poate “salva” un bloc comunist

~ cuvintele importante sunt pe placa

~ farmecul unui rau neamenajat. Unde sunt Pet-urile?

~ cap de pod

~ Taste summer!

~ Fery ne face cunostinta cu cele mai bune vinuri unguresti. In spate, sus, se vede si un vin romanesc.

Nu comentez articolul dlui Jefford. Doar vi-l infăţisez. Atrag atentia si asupra ultimului paragraf.Cineva, din acea zona, trebuie sa faca ceva. 

By Andrew Jefford

Published: August 16 2008

Women chat over the buckets at the village well; men knock plums from a tree with sticks in the rain; boys gently twig the flies from the family cow as it grazes. Hay from the fields is forked, early in warm summer mornings, on to carts which horses then pull back to the village, while flocks of sheep and goats trot in the other direction, whistled by weathered men and their dogs towards a day’s grazing. Weathered men, that is, who stop whistling the moment their mobile phone rings.

In one of Europe’s most remarkable rural landscapes, simultaneously modern and pre-industrial, Romanian wine is struggling to reinvent itself. The country has been a subdued presence on foreign wine markets for the past two decades. The difficulties of land restitution following the collapse of communist rule at Christmas 1989 resulted not in the hoped-for surge of opportunity, but in a lost decade. That transition is now ending, helped by EU accession in January 2007 and its “Sapard” funds for agriculture.

Six of the best

Few of Romania’s best wines are yet on sale in the UK. Vinexpert (www.evinoteca.ro) is a good source in Bucharest and online for Davino, Comte de Poix (Serve or Terra Romana) and Dominiul Coroanei.  The wines of Prince Stirbey are, by contrast, available in the UK via www.ivintners.co.uk – I recommend the crisp yet gently fragrant white 2006 Feteasca Regala (£7.78) and the more aromatically exuberant dry white 2006 Tamaioasa Romaneasca (£7.78), though I wish both were a little less steely-dry and had more of the flavour one finds in the best Alsace or Austrian whites.

Romanian reds are lighter than one would expect given the often prodigious summer heat; Pinot Noir, though, performs well on the Carpathian foothills. The 2007 Colina Piatra Alba Pinot Noir sourced from Halewood and sold by www.laithewaites.co.uk at £39.90 for six bottles has unusual depth and power in this hot vintage; it’s excellent value. Merlot is another steady performer in gentle, easy-going style: the
2006 Limited Edition River Route Merlot from Reh (Waitrose, £5.19) is gratifyingly curranty, with a sweet finish.

If you have a taste for the studied neutrality of almost everything labelled “Pinot Grigio”, you might enjoy the wholly typical 2007 Frunza Pinot Grigio from Recas in the west of the country, sold by Thresher at £5.99 or £11.97 for three bottles. The 2007 La Citadella Pinot Grigio is more incisive, thanks to Transylvanian fruit (www.laithewaites.co.uk, £36.90 for six bottles).

Much is expected of Romanian wine by the few who take an interest in it. Since Trajan’s first-century Dacian campaigns, depicted on his column near the Quirinal Hill in Rome, the country’s magnetic field has lain westward. The Romanian language itself is testament to this cross- fertilisation; wine, too, lies close to the heart of the country’s sense of self. The prime fact of Romanian geography, the great boomerang of the Carpathians lying across the heart of the country, provides not only a cool Transylvanian plateau suitable for crisp whites, but a long line of propitious south-facing foothills, already planted to vines in Roman times, above the Wallachian plain; there is limestone near the Black Sea coast.

Challenges include its extreme continental climate. Hot summer days exceed 40°C (104°F), while temperatures sink below -25°C (-13°F) on winter nights, so you’ll never see olive groves keeping vineyards company here. The richness of Romanian soils is not always ideal for viticulture. Almost all the best vineyards in the country are under 10 years old, while the older vineyards are a tangle of workhorse varieties or worse (80 per cent of the wine sold in Romania is unbottled, and almost half its vines are hybrids). Even among the quality-minded, there is too much recourse to oak barrels as a panacea, at least for this taster.

Foreign investors, local entrepreneurs and returning aristocrats form a three-pronged vanguard. The Prince Stirbey Estate at Dragasani is an example of the last, reclaimed by Baroness Ileana Kripp-Costinescu and her husband Baron Jakob Kripp in 2001. On slopes above the Olt river, they produce a wide range of wines in clean, lean and angular style: a conscious contrast to traditional Romanian practices, which favour low levels of residual sugar in both red and whites. Comte Guy de Poix, Corsican aristocrat and ex-Val d’Isère dentist, has been building up a domain at Ceptura since 1994; this warm sub-zone of Dealu Mare is thought to be one of the best spots in Romania for red wines, though he says, “It’s too early to be pronouncing on terroir yet here in Romania. We still haven’t got the vineyards planted properly and we can’t move forward until we’ve done that.” Also in Ceptura is Davino, a small winery run by Dan Balaban with winemaker Bogdan Costachescu. These are probably the most assured wines produced today in Romania, and the range includes two fine whites of depth and succulence as well as unique Romanian flavours: the blended Domaine Ceptura (a combination of Sauvignon Blanc with Welschriesling and the local Feteasca Alba) and the Alba Valahica (a pure Feteasca Alba).

The British Halewood Vintners is a long-term investor in Romania, as is German company Carl Reh. Both have mixed quality ranges with occasional stars, often based on Pinot Noir (see panel, left). Their domination of export markets is likely to be challenged by ambitious newcomer Domeniul Coroanei, a former crown domain in Segarcea, where cardiologist Cornelia Anghel and her husband Mihai, a local grain farmer and trader, have overseen an investment of €18m and planted 250 hectares; early results from 2007 look promising, with assured varietal renditions of Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay and Merlot as well as a deliciously oily, spicy white from Feteasca Regala.

Historically, Romania’s greatest wine was the sweet white Cotnari, based on two more indigenous white varieties: Grasa (the “fat one”) and Tamaioasa Romaneasca (the “frankincense grape”) grown in the north-east of the country. Standards there have been disappointing, but the team of Italo-Romanian investors behind the Vinate winery in Zoresti has recently bought 60ha in Cotnari. Perhaps this wine, once considered a rival to Tokaji, may return to dazzle again.