Winetasting in Tarnave vineyard

On the nice road between Medias and Targu Mures, and namely in Ganesti/Seuca, I have been honored to take part on a profesional winetasting, organized in Butoiul Sasului. Our very friendly hosts have been Mr Janos Jancsi and Ildiko Molnar.

Serge Gunnar Nguyen and his friends.

I did not come alone, but with my group of tourists from Norway who were visiting Romania, special mention and thanks to their guide Kjell and excellent busdriver Oivind!

Norwegian tourists taking part to a profesional winetasting. They were speaking very much after the fourth sort of wine!

This vineyard of Tarnave, in the very heart of Transilvania, is a little cooler than other Romanian vineyards. Consequently, the harvesting must be made in the late Autumn, not earlier than the half of October. This year was very good for wine production, with a dried summer and a long warm Autumn. Along many times, the most appropriate grape varieties have been proved to be Italian Riesling;  Sauvignon; Muscat Ottonel (very important: they are all exclusively white wines. The Reds need a moo soil, which is not possible to be found here.) The over mentioned varieties are well adapted to resist and fight against diseases, long drought periods, long chilly winters. They give in average a production of 8-10 tones/hectare and reach a net sugar content of 210-270 gr/kg, resulting excellent wines with 12-13 degrees alcohol. We tasted all these wines, and they have been very convincing, as explained by Mr Jancsi. Of course, the sweet light Muscat Ottonel has conquered the heart of our ladies, and especially the happy group around Serge Gunar (the sultan of the harem obviously!).

This blessed bus has been our wheel hous for 6 days in Romania, and his driver  Oivind our guardian angel!

But we proved also a much more appealing for the men Cabernet Sauvignon, which is a red wine, made from grapes who are purchased from other regions of Romania, e.g. Recas. Neither the Red, nor the Muscat Ottonel was available to purchase, and thus the big hit was the Italian Riesling.