Romania’s wine story
Romania's enotourism and its most recent trends
Radio România Internațional, 19.09.2024, 14:00
The itineraries and the tours taken around Romania’s wine cellars are focused on one single eventual aim: getting acquainted with the regions dedicated to the production of wine and to wine tasting. Tourists can take part in wine-tasting sessions, can make guided tours in wine cellars and vineyards. Not the least, they can make the most of of their extraordinary culinary experiences. Any time of the year has its charm yet the most sought-after timeframe is between May and October, when the temperature outside allows tourists to enjoy having experiences other than the wine-related ones.
Alexandra Gălbează is the founder of Romania’s Enotourism Association. There has been a growing trend in recent years as regards this form of tourism. Moreover, the offer has become more diversified. Or at least that’s what Alexandra Galbeaza told us.
“Of course that, strictly speaking, enotourism means visiting a wine cellar, yet in recent years, especially after the pandemic, the vine growing tourism also has other connotations. It does not only mean visiting a wine cellar but also the opportunity to enjoy a different experience, apart from the wine-tasting proper. We’re speaking about staging musical live concerts in a vineyard, picnics, also in the vineyard, musical evenings, plays, concerts, theme parties with camp fires that carry on late into the night, especially if we speak about the wine cellars that also have accommodation capacity. So tourists can stay the night at the wine cellar, having visited it. “
Accompanied by the founder of Romania’s Enotouriosm Association, Alexandra Gălbează, we start our journey from the Dealu Mare vineyard, which lies very close to Bucharest.
“We began with this region become it is very close to Bucharest where we have very many people. Those who want to escape the capital city have the opportunity to go, at a stone’ s throw away, to a place where they can enjoy a enotourism experience. It also is, arguably, the region with the greatest number of wine cellars. It is a dense area, with the wine cellars lying quite close to one another. So the enotourism activities can also be diverse and many. It is also at this point that we can speak about the recently-built wine cellars, but also about wine cellars with a rich history. We’re speaking about the wine cellar known for the production of the sparkling wine but also for being the purveyor of the Royal house. Also, here we have accommodation facilities. We can start off with a tour of the cellar, with a wine-tasting session and it is also in this region that we can speak about another wine cellar as well, whose history is also rich, which used to be a royal property and which is now owned by Prince Nicolae of Romania and his wife. This wine cellar has developed very many enotourism packages. We have accommodation, theme parties with wine and food pairing can be staged, there also is the personalized partying that can offer a personalized experience. These are initiatives the wine cellars took the liberty to have, yet there are also initiatives that started from the region’s wine cellars uniting their forces. “
We continue our journey and we’re heading to eastern Romania, in Moldavia, and here our stopover is the Vrancea region. Here we can find a wine cellar with a long-standing tradition in wine production, whose premises have nonetheless been modernized in recent years, and which are placed in a dreamlike landscape. This wine cellar offers accommodation as well, while those who wish to spend more time here can benefit from multiple experiences.
” Apart from the fact that they can enjoy the tasting and the local wines, they can stay there for a couple of days, they can cycle all the way to the vineyard, sports aficionados can even stay over night for a game of tennis, if the weather is friendly, we also have a swimming pool. Then travelling further to Moldavia, in the Iasi region we can find a wine cellar with a rich history. It is the cellar where wines are made of indigenous sorts alone: Frâncușă, Grasă de Cotnari. So enotourism cannot be limited to the wine-tasting proper. I am not the only one to say it, also saying it are the European initiatives starting the Wine Road, Iter Vitis, the cultural road of the wine. That means we blend the wine into the cultural story of the place. In Moldavia, we speak about the local wines, however, the Cucuteni civilization can be found close by. Tourists can visit, can find out the story of the place, of the Cucuteni civilization, which is known to be Europe’s oldest civilization. “
The schedule of a visit to the wine cellars needs to be made well in advance. It is a kind of tourism that can be made all year round. For instance, if we want to enjoy the landscape, the vineyard, the best period would be autumn or spring, where we can enjoy the scent, the fragrance, the green landscape. Also, we can go there in the cold season, yet the tour of the wine cellar will be limited to the interior experience. With more on that, here is the founder of Romania’s Enotourism Association, Alexandra Galbeaza.
“Those who want to go the wine cellar and enjoy the experience need to make a call and schedule a visit in advance so they can make sure that at the wine cellar, there is someone who can welcome them. Also, having reached the wine cellar, the story begins with the tour of the cellar, with the story of the place. Specific info is being offered on how the wines were obtained, on the way the wine is produced, starting from the vineyard and all the way to the end product. A point the visit also covers is the bottling area so that visitors can see how wine is bottled, and, not the least, there also is the eagerly-awaited visit to the barrels area, while the tasting oftentimes also takes place in the barrels area or the hall especially dedicated to tasting. That depends on each wine cellar yet it also very much depends on the experience the tourist wants to have “.
The founder of Romania’s Enotourism Association, Alexandra Gălbează, has organized the Enotourism Forum. Here she is once again, this time breaking the news about other interesting projects.
“The next event, it will be in the spring of 2025, most likely. It is an event exclusively dedicated to this particular sort of tourism where we seek to invite representatives of the wine cellars tourism agencies, but also tourist guides, in a bid to think together of what actually happens and what it is required so that this segment can develop in Romania. Also, we intend o create a wine route at national level, accessible, of course, according to the country’s major regions, so that in the future we can integrate this route into the European cultural route. “
A great many tourists are in pursuit of authenticity, of the peaceful life and are happy to discover that, in Romania, there are still traditions and local cuisine. They are delighted with the Romanian wines, especially with the indigenous sorts, all that and the high-standard accommodation offer turn the visit to the wine cellars into an unforgettable experience.
