Last Friday, the 19th of April, I was happy to meet my fellow bloggers for the 3rd time this year. This time the occasion was a special one. We were invited by Magdalena Filary, the head of the Polish Center in Craiova, to celebrate 10 years since the center has been established here. Since then, the bloggers have been an integral part to events where we celebrated traditions common to both our countries, focussing on food and wine, among others. So, every 1st of December – Romania’s National Day – we meet to celebrate like this.
We enjoyed each other’s company, yummy food and good wines, all in the fabulous “Nicolae Romanescu” House. We’ve been here before, in February, if you recall. This house, probably the most beautiful and elegant heritage building from our city, belonged to the most devoted and refined mayor of Craiova. Except for this beautiful building, he built a huge park, the 2nd biggest in South-Eastern Europe. Anyway, I would say that through his projects, Nicolae Romanescu is the mayor who changed the face of our city in the most remarkable way.
Personally, I was familiar enough with the building because, before we moved to Sweden back in 2009, we had our “farewell party” here. Also, when we got back in 2013, I had my first scrapbooking meeting here.
It’s the 2nd time in the last 4 months that I have the opportunity to enjoy wines from Vinju Mare. But first let me tell you about them. So, their domains are located in Mehedinti, which is in the south-western corner of Romania, just above the Danube river. They have started their activity in 2000 and they work on a surface of 134 hectares. They grow 4 types of white grapes (Tâmâioasă Românească, Sauvignon Blanc, Italian Riesling and Chardonnay) and 4 types of red grapes (Fetească Neagră, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah). I knew that their wines can be found in certain supermarket chains, but what I did not know is that they have their own store right here in Craiova, on Bulevardul Carol, no. 84. And their prices are really worth it. We are planning to get there soon enough, Easter is just around the corner and red wine is on the menu – among others ;).
This time we enjoyed 4 wines, from the “Prince Vlad” and “Vinul Principelui”series:
- Vinul Principelui Tămâioasă Românească si Chardonnay + Aperifrais Ile de France,
- Prince Vlad Chardonnay + Havarti Castello,
- Vinul Principelul Rose + British Cheddar Delaco D’Exceptie and
- Prince Vlad Feteasca Neagra + Grana Padano Delaco D’Exceptie.
The first 2 wines were white, the 3rd one a rose and the last one a red wine. And my favourite this time was a white wine – amazingly enough, again. I was expecting a red wine, based on my last 6 experiences. But this just goes to show how unexpectedly amazing wine is. It always surprises you.
My favourite wine was Tămâioasă Românească si Chardonnay, the first one we served that evening. It was a white wine from the range called “Vinul Principelui”. And before I describe the wine for you, allow me to tell you who the “Principe” is. Prince Mihai (1558-1601), or “Mihai Viteazul“, is considered one of Romania’s greatest national heroes and a symbol of Romanian unity. So it makes sense that someone created a wine in his memory, right?
This wine is a combo between 2 types of wine: a specific Romanian one – Tămâioasă – and a French type, used to make champagne – Chardonnay. The elegant dry white one, with an alcoholic volume of 12%, has a rather sweet and flowery aroma gently rendered by the elderflowers and yellow fruits. They mentioned roses and green apples, of which I can not brag that I felt much. But it certainly has a fruity, full, balanced and velvety taste. It’s perfect in summer most of all, I would say. But I might be wrong and it might go perfectly no matter the weather. In the end it’s the company that matters the most, they say ;).
The wine proved to be a perfect companion for the French cheese aperitifs from Aperifrais Ile de France we were delighted with – a perfect combo between elegance and simplicity, from my humble point of view. But also to the delicious plateaus containing different types of grilled meat, baked potatoes and cabbage salad on the side.
We made sure to properly hydrate ourselves with flat water from Dolce Vita, a pure and natural spring water, filtered with the latest technology and produced locally. It has a pH of 7,5. The purification is done via a filter barrier of up to 0,1 micron, which makes the water microbiologically pure, in other words it has no nitrates, nitrites, heavy metals, etc. Our fellow blogger Diana Popa made sure we had flat water to stay hydrated, and we are so thankful.
The whole evening was lovely, and im looking forward to the next event in this perfect company.
Hoping to see you on the next one, I say “CHEERS” to you all and let’s all have a great month of May, which is one of my 3 favourite months of the year – together with September and October -and which is just around the corner!
Positive-Mind-4-Life 