“We are Romania! You are welcome”
A look at events marking the National Day of Romanian Gastronomy and Wine
Ana-Maria Cononovici, 26.08.2025, 14:00
The plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies this month voted a bill that stipulates that the National Day of Romanian Gastronomy and Wine can also be marked by diplomatic missions and consular offices of Romania, by means of events and public and cultural diplomacy programs, with a social, economic and scientific component, highlighting the specifics of Romanian gastronomy and wine, promoting the image of Romania in the world, the wine industry, tourism and regional development in our country. We discussed this topic with Cezar Ioan, the founder of the “We are Romania You are welcome” platform:
“In the coming period, we will organize a number of gastronomic events, part of a broader series organized by the “We are Romania” Action and Thinking Platform, a platform of volunteers who set out to promote Romania’s tourism brand through gastronomy. This series started with the organization of the first gastronomy and wine congress in Romania in 2017, which focused on exploring Romanian gastronomy and on updating, modernizing and promoting it, an initiative that generated a manifesto for gastronomy and wines in Romania, which served as the basis for the emergence of a law that declares the first Sunday in October each year the National Gastronomy and Wine Day. The law was approved in April 2019, but unfortunately it remained less known and quite little celebrated”.
The platform addresses both foreign tourists who come to Romania, and Romanians who want to know their country better. Cezar Ioan, the founder of the “We are Romania You are welcome” platform, told us more about the main events:
“There are four events organized in three cities, conferences, but especially tasting sessions, explorations, associations of Romanian dishes and wines with music. Over May 31 – June 1, we were in Craiova, where we explored the gastronomic brand “Oltenia’s Gastronomic Identity” and the opportunities for its development both in HORECA, in restaurants, as well as in large retail and even in international retail. We are talking about typical products from the region of Oltenia, typical wines from that area, travel packages to wineries, always associating gastronomy with local wines. We believe there is a treasure there that is still insufficiently explored and insufficiently exported, either through tourism or simply through the export of products. On June 3, in Bucharest, we had the International Day of the Fetească Regală, a Romanian signature varietal, a very versatile and highly appreciated grape, but less known. In the courtyard of the Romanian Peasant Museum we held a conference to which guests from Bulgaria were also invited to tell us how they celebrate their national varietal, Mavrud, and to try an exchange know-how. Later we had a proper celebration, with live music, old Romanian music, with over 30 wines from numerous wineries, which produce Fetească Regală, but also other Romanian varietals”.
Cezar Ioan also told us about the events planned for June 6-8:
“After that, for three days, in Tulcea, in the traditional fishing village near Tulcea, we had the Pentecostal Mackerel Festival, an event we organized jointly with the Tulcea city hall, devoted to regional gastronomy and wines, but also with sensory education workshops for children and adults, all kinds of creative workshops, as well as conferences, which we hope will be enlightening, first of all for the general public, but also for professionals. Thousands of people attended, both for the food and for the live music”.
Cezar Ioan says that Romanian gastronomy is an extraordinary blend of influences from three great empires, the Tsarist Empire, the Ottoman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but also of the numerous ethnic groups that have coexisted with Romanians over time, leaving their mark on the period.
“Last but not least, on June 14-15, in Bucharest, at the flagship restaurant of the Danube Delta, of the Ivan Patzaichin Association, we will organize two days of Celebration of the Diversity of Dobrogea. The event is called “Dobrogean Wines and Dishes” and offers Bucharesters a chance to discover small artisanal food producers, local wine producers and, of course, recipes cooked based on ingredients specific to Dobrogea. We are not only talking about coastal Dobrogea, or deltaic Dobrogea, but also continental Dobrogea. It will be a spectacular event, and we invite everyone to take part!”
The coming weeks are thus very promising for all those interested in Romanian gastronomy and wines, both in terms of tastings and specialized debates. (VP)
