A
casual conversation about wine on a flight between Bucharest and Vienna turned,
sadly, into a cultural stand-off. The young man in the window seat turned out
to be a Romanian sommelier working in Salzburg to whom Daniela, in the middle
seat, introduced me – knowing how much I appreciate wines ...ever since a cycle
trip in my teens to the south of France in 1960!
But
what should have been a pleasurable, if not educational, conversation during
the flight was soured by….prejudice….I dare say on both sides…..
I
don’t pretend to know a great deal about Romanian wines but - after 10 years’
experience of drinking Bulgarian wines (not least at 3 of the
massive annual weekend tastings which Sofia organises in November) and a winter
of tutelage under a young Bulgarian sommelier – I do know that Bulgarian
wines deserve more respect than this young whippersnapper was giving them…I
mentioned the little Bulgarian wine Catalogue
produced on the eve of the annual Sofia tasting and observed the absence of
such a Romanian publication – only to be told that I was wrong. He said there
is such a publication – but only for sommeliers. He didn’t seem to understand
that ordinary drinkers might like to have access to such a compendium - and indeed that such a restriction effectively means exactly what I said - that no such publication exists.....
On
my side I didn’t take kindly to his dismissal of the possibility of getting a
useful experience from any bottle priced at 5 euros – “they cost more than 3
euros to produce” he expostulated….I didn't have the heart to tell him that one of my favourite Romanian whites - Jidvei Riesling - retails for exactly 3 euros!
But
what did it for me was his mention of a bottle priced at 1000 euros – “Just
stupid” I muttered – to which he took high offence. Quick end of our
conversation - although Daniela continued to engage him in conversation during
which he mentioned that he had started drinking wines only in 2009 (!!) and emphasized
the intensity of his training – and, of course, my ignorance.
What
lesson do I draw…something to do with the closed mind…sommeliers, by
definition, deal with rich people and therefore, despite the world of tastes
having being opened to them, develop the arrogance of experts. And young Romanians are notorious for such arrogance - as is well testified by Ronnie Smith on page 80 of my Mapping Romania.....
I’d
like to see how Theodor
Zeldin might have
handled such a conversation to more mutual advantage!
A Zeldin Resource
hidden
pleasures of life http://www.anilgomes.com/uploads/2/3/9/7/23976281/gomes_tls.pdf
A wine resource
This list gives a good
indication of some of the Bulgarian wineries who present their wines at the
annual fair in Sofia. And this
is the list of Romanian wineries for the Bucharest event (which is in May)
The
one field in which Romania does seem to score higher (?!) is that of wine blogs
eg
Postscript
I
should have done my homework on Austrian wine-bars before hitting Austria…The
white wines I could find were all boring variants of their Gruner Weltliners and Rieslings!
Far
more interesting were those I found yesterday from a new Romanian vineyard (for me) in the
Dobrogea area (near the Black Sea) - Macin vineyard. Superb
Aligote, Muscat, Sauvigon Blanc and Feteasca Regeales – all for 2 euros a
litre.
pps this is a good article on the whole issue of wine tastes
pps this is a good article on the whole issue of wine tastes
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