Crișana & Maramureș

With around 180,000 hectares of vines Romania is Europe's sixth-largest wine producer and one of the continent's oldest wine countries: viticulture is documented here for more than 6,000 years, and Herodotus wrote about the wine trade on the Black Sea coast. The country lies on the latitude of France; the Carpathians divide it into three climate zones – Atlantic-influenced Transylvania, continental Moldavia, and Mediterranean-tinged Wallachia and Dobrogea. After phylloxera (from 1872) the vineyards were replanted with French varieties, but the native grapes survived: Fetească Albă, Fetească Regală and Fetească Neagră, Grasă and Frâncușă in Cotnari, Tămâioasă Românească, Băbească Neagră, Crâmpoșie and Negru de Drăgășani. Origins follow Order 225/2006: eight wine regions, 37 podgorii (wine districts) and more than 150 wine centres; protected origins carry the DOC label (Denumire de Origine Controlată).

Crișana and Maramureș form the north-western wine region on the Hungarian border. Four podgorii: Miniș-Măderat east of Arad on the foothills of the Zarand mountains – famous for the 'Aszú of Miniș', a sweet Cadarcă of the 18th century, today for Cabernet, Merlot, Cadarcă and the local white Mustoasă de Măderat; Diosig north of Oradea and Valea lui Mihai on sandy soils with Furmint and Fetească; Silvania around Șimleu Silvaniei and Zalău, where sparkling wine has a tradition. The climate is temperate continental with Pannonian influence; soils range from sand and loam to weathered volcanic soils at Miniș.