Surmounting perception barriers

The first time Phillip Cox CEO of the Romanian winery Cramele Recas (pronounced, I think, Cram-el-lay Rek-ash) came within my radar reach was when a number of luminary wine writing colleagues starting tweeting about their Orange wine, launched onto the UK market by Lidl.

Often the tweets were about comments made by others expressing their concern about the audacity of Cramele Recas selling their Orange wine well below the usual price for this ‘new’ style of wine, made with white wine grape varieties, which include skin contact, as in red wine making. Such a pricing policy was surely besmirching the good name of the wine style and of the world’s other producers, some outraged commentators raged! (Yes, I know, there are far more important things in today’s world to be outraged about!).

Most of my colleague wine writers were calming the waters by saying something like, relax, live and let live etc. And I’m sure that I’m not the only reader of these tweets who determined to try said Cramele Recas Orange wine for myself. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, and no doubt the leading protagonist in this particular saga, ex-Bristolian, Phillip Cox, was rubbing his hands with glee. In fact, I know he was, I met him a few months later, on his home territory in the Banat region of Romania!

Regular readers may remember my article ‘The Future is Orange’ and my subsequent review of Simon J. Woolf’s definitive book on Orange wine, ‘The Amber Revolution’ (both articles archived here www,colinharknessonwine.com click articles and scroll down). In both I waxed lyrical about the renaissance of this ancient wine style (certainly 6,000 years old, and you can probably add another millennium or two as well!), having tasted Orange/ Amber wines from three different Spanish bodegas on (and not far from) the Costa Blanca. So when I arrived with other journalists/bloggers at Cramele Recas, I was keen to try and Easter European version, the East being Orange wine’s original home all those thousands of years ago!

We met Phillip on a rise above one of the vineyards they own, looking over the vines, harvested but still in leaf, running, in this case, all the way to the distant, but visible Serbian border. It, along with other vineyard views was very impressive. And so was the whole, huge enterprise!

Although Cramele Recas is a new business, about 20 years or so, there is an ancient tradition of vine growing here. There are records of vines growing in these lands in the 1450s, and it was really the Germans who developed them commercially in the 1700s. In 1948 the Germans left and there followed a long and difficult time under the communist regime, as was the case with all Romanian wineries.

The winery was purchased (after considerable red tape cutting, which is ongoing) in 2000. The land under vine has expanded during the last years and now comprises 1,200 hectares, proving the raw material for 68 different brands, including sparkling, red, white, rosé and orange. The output in terms of litres is staggering – in 2018 reach 24 million litres were made, though this includes grapes bought from other growers.

Cramele Recas makes good use of a flying winemaker, also an expert in vine disease, who advises the resident wine making team, including an Australian and, interestingly for me, one from Rioja, whom we also met.

Our first taste of wine was in the oldest part of the winery, which was very atmospheric with subdued lighting to add to the effect. Some delicious canapés were included, perhaps to keep us going on our lengthy tour (with such a vast facility it had to be!). We then repaired to the tasting proper – some seventeen different wines, plus two more over a super lunch!

At Cramele Recas they make use of international grape varieties as well as local varieties. I liked all the wines, but for me it was, with perhaps one or two exceptions, the local variety wines that I enjoyed most, as well as those which included a blend of local and international.

Readers may have seen Wildflower Cuvee Blanc in the UK – a white wine blended with Chardonnay, Muscat, Sauvignon Blanc and the local Feteasca Regala, meaning Royal Maiden. I loved this wine – very aromatic with a floral aspect and bags of fruit. I also liked very much the 100% Feteasca Regala, named Solevari 2018, which was again very aromatic.

There are, we were told, only 17 hectares in the world of the Negru de Dragasani red wine variety. I’m not sure why, when it can produce wine like the Regno Recas we enjoyed! Dark in colour with good juicy fruit on the palate and blackberries and blackcurrants on the nose.

My favourite red wine of the wines tasted was Cuvee Uberland 2015. A very dark, almost brooding red wine, made with a combination of grapes left on the vine and those picked earlier but dried in the sunshine. A grown-up wine and like all the wines we tasted one which over delivers in terms of price/ quality – which is the avowed

intent of Phillip and his team!