February: peak season!

When I meet Moldovan friends in London - most are on extended holidays - two topics of conversation always come up. The first is invariably about the Ali G show (to those not familiar he presented the MTV music awards last year) and a comedy character, he created, a Kazakhstan news reporter investigating English cultural life. Unfortunately his total lack of awareness about "political and social correctness" in language creates a number of comical situations. For example he describes his love of hunting in Kazakhstan to a group of real English vegetarians in bad English. The result you can imagine!

The second is about how natural Moldovan food is and English supermarket fruit and vegetables are not. It is always a great source of national pride to Moldovans in England, rightly so! At present there is a movement towards organically produced food because of worries about genetic tomatoes made from fish DNA and cows injected with hormones to produce more milk and so on. This leads me on to the subject of Moldovan wine.

After all my years working in the English wine trade nothing could prepare me for the Moldovan wine scene and this most important time of year in February. Also at this time everybody begins to think about summer holidays and George Harrison's song "Here comes the sun" on The Beatles White album reminds me of that mood. Well, I mention this because people used to come back from their summer holidays regaling me with tales of experiences in Greek Tavernas, Italian Trattorias and Spanish bars of mystical, wonderful fresh fruity wines they had drunk long into the night with little ill effect. They told me the wines we sold were just not the same, somehow not natural. Only when I got to Moldova and came across the phenomenon of "Vin de Casa" did I understand what they were talking about. Drinking something so natural tasting and fresh without any chemicals was an amazing experience.

My first encounter with house wine was on my first visit to Moldova in 1994 as an English teacher. Then I was working at a summer camp near Kondriza where I got roped into a drinking ceremony by students. It consisted of a circle of ten people around which they passed one glass of wine that you downed in one! Blissfully unaware only later did I realize the aim of the exercise was to see who would keel over first. Luckily for me students not having such big budgets were unable to reach this stage because they had not banked on the fact that the other English teachers were hardened drinkers with years of practice in university bars (for the uninitiated, students at university in England spend large amounts of their time drinking cheap lager and that includes women). So 12 litres of wine procured from local villagers quickly vanished in our company and our Moldovan students were left looking rather stunned. Later on at the prompting of the teachers they asked to liven the circle tradition up with vodka! Game for a laugh, the older Moldovan students took up the banner and you can imagine after only 20 minutes the circle was star shaped!!! Next day everyone worse for wear vowed to stick to house wine. When I returned home, it was quite a site on British Airways, a group of English student teachers repeating the circle tradition, merrily swigging house wine from a 1,5 litre plastic container as the plane flew over the white cliffs of Dover.

I have been tasting house wines for 7 years and there are a few really, really good ones and a lot of mediocrity. Firstly I would point out a lot of Moldovan home wine makers add sugar or go as far as to add a local spirit known as "samogon" to their wines to give them a "kick". Avoid this at all cost and white wines too if you want my advice!

The secret of finding good house wine is to find someone in the villages of Moldova who have old grape vines of 30 years old or more and who blend together from many different grape types. Moldovan summers are very hot and it is necessary to mix white grapes with red to lighten and correct the strength of reds. Look for friends with grandparents, you are likely to find success. Even better is to go to the villages and investigate. Although this is a highly perilous activity in Moldova for a foreign visitor!

Firstly you will be overwhelmed by the hospitality and then the tradition of downing in one a glass of wine. Unable to resist or not wanting to be rude; I have been left totally intoxicated as a result, many times singing Moldovan drinking songs and toasting even the wallpaper! Remember the local people in the village have had a lot of experience and you have not! There is one survival tip I can offer which is eat as much food as possible. Also be on the look out for the most dangerous house wine made from Lidia grapes. It is deceptively light and easy but deadly about two hours later. Many times I have found myself singing "O sole Mio" by Pavarotti on the long journey home with my Moldovan friends after this wine. Even I have seen big Mafia bosses brought up on Vodka reduced to rolling around on the floor after Lidia wine or the dark reds of the south: only rescued by bodyguards and put back into gleaming black BMW cars to be taken home, avoiding ultimate humiliation! I have often been amazed also how suddenly even lawyers are willing to start singing after these wines and like many of the older generation they will impress upon me how well they speak French. The more they drink the more French they imagine they speak!!! Anyhow, it is no accident that they use it to make fortified wine! At the end of the day "when in Rome do as the Romans do" and likewise in the villages and you will be loved always if you are foreigner.

There is a huge variety and styles of house wine from all over Moldova that are fascinating to taste from grapes totally unique to Moldova. Forget about Cabernet and Merlot, the king grapes are from Zhyber, Busuioc, Isabella, Lidia and Moldova. Life is always interesting in Moldova and wine is one of its great pleasures that I hope you will enjoy but remember "all things in moderation" and when I say that remember the expression "famous last words" many the time I have said to myself never again (never say never) and found myself being cajoled yet again by insisting Moldovan host. Wine, Cognac, Champagne and Vodka suddenly start to appear and even when you are just outside the door someone says this is for the "coada de pisica" and another glass is thrust into your hand and a toast is made. On one of these occasions completely blitzed I staggered into one of those special outdoor toilets (a hole in the ground) which I have only ever seen in France, throwing up and forgetting about my 100$ sunglasses!!! Immediately I looked down in horror as they shot down into the hole, 3 meters deep lost forever, as you can imagine I had no intention of going down there to get them!!!

At the end of the day Moldovan house wine does not travel and when I tried drinking it under the cloudy skies of England it just did not seem the same. During the peak season in the summer it is better to enjoy a beer whereas now is the time to enjoy house wine at its best until March with hot fresh placinta in a Moldovan cellar and some good singing partners!!!

By Philip A. Quick