They Make Wine There?! Moldova

France, Spain, Italy, United States, Argentina, Chile, Austria, New Zealand, South Africa and Moldova these are the super-powers of the wine world. Yep you read it right, Moldova - and yes there is a country called Moldova. Moldova is one of the big boys of the wine world being the main exporter of wine to Russia and to Eastern European countries.

Moldova is a medieval nation stuck in the middle of Ukraine and Romania and in fact, it is also where the opening scenes of Borat were filmed. In 1812 Moldova, rich in wine for about 4,000-5,000 years, was taken over by Russia and it stayed that way until 1991.

Russia has also always been the main buyer of Moldovan wine but sadly sales declined due to a 300 year war. The Moldovan vineyards were not stopped though and they continued using their traditional grapes and their newly planted French grapes like Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Gamay and Muscat. Soon it fast became the chosen tipple of both the Tzar’s and the Russian people. At this point it reached 54 square miles of vines which produced an amazing 12 million liters a year.

When the tzars left and the Communist leaders took their places Moldova carried on making wines for the Communist elite throughout the Soviet Union. Their wine became the drink of Eastern European with over 800 square miles of land covered with vines. They made some great wine using Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Muscat, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir and Malbec also some fantastic fizz which if exported could have taken on California and Champaign. They even made their own Brandy using the tradition Cognac methods for their “comrades”, aka the party officials.

After Moldova regained its independence in 1991 people in the west began to experience the surprisingly good Moldovan wine. Shockingly their wine is made using medieval techniques by people who would not look out of place in the Borat movie. Their specialty? Semi-sweet wines which are bought and drunk with joy but the western market is small fish compared to Russia as 85% of all their wines are still exported to the old motherland. Eight-five percent of the total quantity exported is a lot, especially when a massive amount of households are employed in the industry. In fact, wine accounts for 28% of all export revenues, which makes the fragile grapes Moldova’s most valuable commodity.

Russia knew how much of Moldova’s economy is tied in with wine and in 2006 after the Moldovan government began moving towards NATO, Russia put on a ban on Moldova’s wine saying it had heavy metals in it. This is completely unlikely as Moldova is a place where horse and cart is the luxury vehicles of the country. To this day no proof has ever been provided. Unfortunately the ban not only brought the wine industry to its knees but also the entire country and there was nothing the world could do as Russia was not a member of the World Trade Organization.

Luckily the ban was removed in November 2007 and since then Moldova has been trying to move more into the western market; which is good for all you wine lovers. They have also begun to change their style from semi-sweet to crisp dry whites with Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio. What’s even better is their Chardonnay fizz called Cuvee Aleksandr which is simply fantastic. So keep your eyes open for Moldovan wines as they will becoming a better known name in the years to come.

Nic Conner works in the UK wine trade and hates three things: over priced wine, people buying wine because of the name and unnecessary pomp.