Southern Sands

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).

The sands of southern Oltenia are a special case: on the wind-blown dunes along the Danube between Drobeta-Turnu Severin and Corabia phylloxera cannot survive, and many vines grow on their own roots. Three podgorii – Dacilor around Jiana and Izvoarele, Calafat with Cetate, Ciuperceni and Poiana Mare, and Sadova-Corabia around Dăbuleni – farm around 10,000 hectares. The climate is Romania's warmest; the soils store heat and release it at night. Traditionally light whites and the pink Roșioară are made; newer estates near Cetate focus on Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Fetească Neagră.