Seasonal Taste

Romanian wines seem at last – after almost 30 years - to be coming in from the cold. No fewer than three significant “events” occurred in this domain in the past few months. First the publication in the summer of a substantial book The Wines of Bulgaria, Romania and Moldova; by Caroline Gilby (2018) who has apparently been a wine connoisseuse for the past decade and is the first English-speaking specialist to produce a book about the local wines. (An expensive coffee-table The Wine Book of Romania was produced a couple of years ago by a Romanian)

Gilby's book came to my attention because of the wine blog of Mike Vesseth - who made his first visit to Romania this autumn; took part on some wine tasting at Iasi and posted about these experiences this month.

I had no sooner asked to see a copy of the Gilby book (50 euros!) than, a few days later, I alighted on a copy of the first ever Gault Millau Guide to Romanian Wines 2019 – which describes (all too briefly) 63 wineries and 152 wines. There’s a good summary of the Romanian wine varieties here

At the same time, the various Crama (bulk wine cellars) which are such a pleasant feature of life here have been giving us access to the dry white wines of Averesti (Iasi), Macin (Dobrogea), Jidvei (Alba Iulia), and Vissoara (Constanta) – for 2 euros a litre! The famous Obor market not far from us has the last two including a new grape for me, the Sarba, available from Girboiu - one of the many new vineyards which have developed in the country in the past decade or so

There’s a nice review of some Romanian wines here