Romania does not figure prominently in wino literature. Under communism, the country's wine was crudely produced and drunk locally for oblivion's sake. And although the vineyards had been planted for many centuries, with 50-year-old vines still flourishing, Ceausescu shut off the region from the thirsty millions beyond the border. The locals themselves, lacking the spur of a market economy, failed to develop the skills of modern vinification, and the assets of well-drained fertile soil and warm climate went to waste.
Not everything that has happened in Romania since the communist collapse is calculated to please the advocate of liberal democracy. But on the assumption that advocacy of a doomed philosophy is in any case thirsty work, it is worth pointing out that wines from Romania are now available at a price that all our readers can afford. The wines to which I refer come from the western town of Recas, not far from the Tokaji region of Hungary. Foreign experts, in the form of Philip and Elvira Cox, whose families tend the vines, and the Stellenbosch winemaker David Lockley, have released the grapes from the prison of local ignorance. And an enormous expenditure of energy has earned this winery first place in the Bucharest awards, and the highest reputation among well-informed drunkards in Romania.
In an effort to find a wider market, the Recas winery has planted as many grape varietals as there are vineyards to nourish them, and the result is on sale through Wines of Westhorpe at ridiculous prices - some less than £3 a bottle. Among those from the 2003 vintage, we were impressed by a sprightly blend of Sauvignon Blanc and the local Feteasca, by a fleshy Merlot, and by a deliciously girlish Merlot Rose, which danced down the oesophagus like a troupe of scarf-waving folk dancers in search of a real man in jeans. We also tried a 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserva. Despite its youth, this entered the fray with a full-frontal kiss of huge proportions, and went cheering fruitily into the dark. At just under £4 a bottle, this must be the cheapest tipple of its kind on the market. Moreover, under Wines of Westhorpe's strange discounts system, you can knock off £7 a dozen if you buy no fewer than 56 cases and not one bottle more.
We pondered the significance of this for some time, before concluding that it is designed to offer two years of comfort to the ordinary decent bottle-a-day paterfamilias, leaving a few spare days to indulge his taste for Vosne-Romanee or Chateau Lafite. All such people should e-mail wines@westhorpe.co.uk and postpone for a couple of years the date of their emigration. And when they emigrate in search of the old European order that produced them, they should probably flee to Romania.
