Wine Across the Balkans: The Powder Keg of Europe Is Blowing Up

Class Transcript:

And all it is a pleasure to have you with us, uh, today for a, uh, long overdue lesson uh dedicated to an ancient winemaking corner of the world, a very much an emerging uh winemaking corner of the world in the Balkans, the Balkans kind of geographically diffuse and mutable um over time, very much a region that you know is defined differently depending upon, uh, who you ask and defined differently, uh, culturally and geographically, for the sake of this region, we are, uh, as we want to do of course taking a more maximalist view, for the sake of how we, uh, choose to define, uh, the Balkans today, to allow us to explore as many of these Wines as possible because, uh, it is exciting uh region there's a sense of hope um for the sake of the wines emerging from the Balkans and for the sake of the region itself which has long been you know vulnerable uh to uh political instability and uh as we speak uh is uh certainly emerging has maybe not quite fully emerged but is emerging uh from it and uh particularly excited uh to shine a light on some uh wines from unfamiliar varieties um that are unique uh to this corner um of the world in the Balkan Peninsula. I'm hoping to be joined um uh by Zoe; I don't know if she got the memo um about the uh earlier uh gathering time, she also um had a long night with us uh earlier this week and uh it's possible that she hasn't entirely recovered so um hopefully uh we'll have zoe if not i'm gonna fly solo for the sake of the chat uh which is which is horrifying um but if you want to blow up my spot and  shout at us here uh please don't hesitate to uh do so i promise i won't take any offense um again uh we are uh celebrating a region that almost um you know welcome or almost you know embodies um you know a dozen different nations and and as such i didn't want to um uh you know um do a four-pack it felt uh you know like you'll be doing this uh place and the diversity of this place a disservice so thank you so much for joining us today and we'll see you next time so we are appropriately balkanized for uh the sake of this lesson and uh as such um everyone's kind of on a different path so um i encourage you uh to chime in um for the sake of um the chat uh especially if i neglect any one of the wines that we um sold um over the course of uh the several weeks um leading up to this lesson i want to make sure  certainly uh that we get to them all because they're all worth covering um and you know even having covered you know a dozen different bottles we will barely scratch the surface uh for the sake of um what is available Um, from uh, you know this remarkable uh corner of the winemaking world so uh, we've given folks uh a a chance to join. Thank you for taking time out of uh your January routine um, I hope that you, you know uh decided um, you know to make this uh a drums on day and a week out of renovations and uh, the superpowers of the splendor and saves Chrysler and uh or and so we'll see... Jimmy a year from baptism hats and superpowers of Pinor Noir.

I'm going to stop there and go um now let me um, I want to thank, I would like to thank uh Dr. Rome and uh Marby as well for um, speaking to us and uh, for their um, for their uh kind of definition of the Balkans that includes Moldova, uh, but I had to for the sake of this lesson and um Moldova gets short shrift um Moldova, um, you know, uh has the largest percentage of its acreage um of its land under vine and it's actually the 20th largest wine producing country in the world, uh, even though it's the 20th smallest country in the world, so good on you Moldova um we're gonna close things out with Moldova um here uh and I'm gonna begin as always um with a bit of verse uh to begin proceeding so uh naturally uh the bit of verse here uh hails from a uh this particular bit of verse uh and welcome to Ed and Heather joining us from uh abroad in some Copenhagen hotel room.

Uh, this uh bit of verse uh comes from a Serbian poet and uh it speaks to uh spaces of hope um that have stored historically I have often been lacking um in this corner of the world so uh without further ado um I give you Ivan Ilacic: Spaces of Hope. I have experienced the spaces of hope; the spaces of a moderate mercy, experience the places which suddenly set into a random form of lilac garden, a street in Florence, a morning room, a sea smeared with silver before the storm or a starless night lit only by book on the table; the spaces of hope are in time not linked into a system of miracles nor into a unity; they merely exist as in Campanar.

At the station, wind in a wild vine, a quarter century ago, one space of hope another set somewhere in the future is already destroying the void around it, unclear but real, probable in the spaces of hope; light grows free of charge and voices are clear. Death has a beautiful shadow; the lilac blooms later, but for that, it looks like its first ever flower, um, brilliant. And this is, uh, I should say, uh, for the sake of the Balkans, you know, one of those regions, um, you know, one of those corners of the world in which it has been necessary, um, to, you know, latch on to hope, uh, to cling to hope, uh, at times, uh, throughout its history; this is the space of Hope, and it's a place where you can find the moment globally.

Uh, when we've had to do the same, uh, and I hope that, um, you know these classes have, uh, created uh those spaces of hope uh for you uh in your workday or monthly routine, um, I said as much in Amalia yesterday, but in case you didn't get it, um, uh, we are winding down, um, uh, you know all good things, and, uh, this is, uh, gonna be our third to last class, so we're exploring the Balkans, um, and, uh, we're going to be doing a lot of work on the Balkans, um, and we're going to be, uh, we are going to explore, um, red burgundy here after, um, which will get appropriately luxurious, we're going to uh wind things down uh in march two years after our pandemic journey uh began uh with uh uh chardonnay uh through the looking glass um wine clubs such as it is will will not be coming to end we'll continue to sell wine uh through uh revelers hour uh but you know we'll find different ways uh to uh you know we'll find different ways uh to uh to uh you know to uh engage you all uh been hugely grateful uh for uh this community uh you all have created um space of hope for me here um all right uh that brings us to the balkans um the balkans um uh are both a geographical uh and kind of a cultural uh place so this is a map of the balkans without names Uh, it is a peninsula; the word itself 'Balkan' comes from, uh, the Turkish for 'mountains', and, uh, it is uh a fittingly mountainous peninsula geographically, that is really kind of its defining feature.

And, geographically, that means, uh, that you've had a lot of distinct, isolated populations; you have, uh, all sorts of different linguistic groups, uh, throughout the Balkans. Um, and, uh, you have a Slavic group of languages, a Servo-Croat group of dialects, a Romanian group of dialects that are actually um Romance languages, and many more beside that. But um, the fact that there are so many, you know, uh, linguistic traditions, cultural traditions religious traditions has been problematic throughout its history but it revolts it results from um this you know mountainous entity because you have you know people occupying you know um these uh geographically distinct spaces geographically isolated spaces in a very small corner of the world and the peninsula is defined uh by three bodies of water the black sea to the east uh the aegean and the mediterranean to the south and the adriatic to the west now um the blue outline describes here um the geographic balkans um and then the full shaded region describes the cultural balkans uh you will see to the North outside of the blue line, um, Romania and Moldova we are adding them to the mix because historically, um, they have, uh, played a huge part, um, in the development of this region, um, Moldova's kind of, you know, relationship with the rest of the region is murky at best but, uh, Moldova, um, has a lot, uh, it shares culturally with Romania, uh, you see there's a little, uh, dotted outline here that is everyone's favorite breakaway, uh, republic, uh, Transnistria, there, um, along the, uh, eastern edge of, uh, Moldova I wasn't able to, you know, track away any wines from, uh, Transnistria but neither here nor there, all these places Balkan, such as we are concerned but um i think the fluidity of this this region is important to understand because geographically we are at the crossroads of the continent geographically um you know we have all sorts of uh major powers uh lurking uh variously on our doorstep um you know you have i'm gonna pull up a a different map here of uh the balkan region um you have uh to the south uh you know the sick man of europe uh historically um the you know the ottoman empire um uh and you know religiously obviously that carried with it um uh you know uh islam uh you have uh to the east uh the russian bear um you have uh to kind of like the north and west um, Austria-Hungary, um and then you have to the west, Italy which didn't emerge as a unified state, um until the late 19th century but you got, you know Venice, um Florida, um you know the northern part of the all sorts of wealthy and dynamic Italian city-states that, particularly in the Western Balkans, exercise enormous influence over the development of this place. And if you're looking for kind of unifying threads here, I think a really important one is the vine. We like to think of Western Europe as exercising this monopoly over tradition when it comes to winemaking. But winemaking in the Balkans, its history is as deep as it is almost anywhere else in the Western world. I love this quote. This is the latest edition of the wine Atlas, don't leave home without it. And they say about the Balkans, a few wines of more than local interest come from the regions on this map today. It is for political reasons rather than geographical ones.

On the latitude of Italy and similarly diverse and mountainous, the Balkans have equal propitious conditions for vines. They have ancient histories of winemaking and many native grape varieties that inevitably result. And they have emerged from years of political strife to offer increasing proof of rich winemaking potential. And I love these parts of the wine world, these lands that time forgot, that are equally ancient and modern and that are bringing this sense of tradition, this sense of opportunity, this sense of opportunity, this sense of hope, this dynamic possibility into the modern world. And the Balkans definitely embodies that. Glad the Monastery is a hit. Ed and Heather, thrilled to have you from Madrid, not Scandinavia such as it is. I got that wrong, I know you are hitting up Basque country.

But without further ado, we're going to dive into a little wine here. So dynamic, huge region, the Balkans. And we are going to work our way from west to east. So, you all have different data points that you're kind of tracking for the sake of your individual wine journey. And we are going to start in Croatia for the sake of our journey here. And Croatia is a corner of the Balkans that, you know, kind of embodies a lot of other themes that we are going to continue to strike upon for the sake of this lesson. Wine is an essential part of Croatian national life. And it is a region that is incredibly diverse, you know, culturally. The Croat population, largely Catholic. And obviously, you know, the Catholics made wine a crucial part of their engagement with the locals.

The wine that we sent around, the Patinta Malvasia, which is a huge hit, is from Istria. Istria is just south of Trieste. It is the light red region you see working here. And Istria, you know, interesting to my mind, it's one of those places that changed hands many, many times over the centuries. So the winemaker here, Picentum, that name comes from the ancient Latin name for the village that this particular winery sits outside of. And the winemaker, his name is Dimitri Brečević. He is talking, discussing his Croatian grandfather, who was born in 1898, died in 1999. Lived 101 years, born an Austrian in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, became Italian, because that part of Croatia was Italian. Became Yugoslav and died Croatian.

And I think that is, you know, a uniquely Istrian experience and that Italian experience, which is very much one that is, you know, unique to Istria, unique to Croatia. Italy doesn't exercise a, as profound an influence throughout the West, the rest of the Balkans, as it does in Istria, certainly culturally. But that experience of the fluidity of borders, that experience of, you know, being at the mercy of, you know, larger historical geopolitical fates, is very much one that is shared by the peoples of this region. There are kind of three grapes that they work with primarily throughout Istria. And you know, part of the nice things about of Vinocchio's attempt to inspire people like that, I think, to some extent is that one, the experience giving people a loan. Will, Bari to support them. to support them. Okay, thank you. Yes, absolutely. tradition of raising these wines on the skins is one that is very much lost during the communist era. So, you know, the First World War and the Second World War were disastrous for the sake of the political instability in this region, but communism was equally disastrous in its own way. These are regions that, you know, continuously made wine throughout the state-sponsored socialist adventure, misadventure, but the paradigm was very different. They made wine largely for domestic markets, but also for export to Russia. In Russia, the domestic market favored sweeter wines, and they didn't give a rat's ass about quality. The Russian state was seeking to promote this, you know, kind of perception of luxury for its citizens, and wine, making wine widely available to everyone, like making caviar and bread widely available to everyone, became, you know, a huge part of the socialist project, and that meant creating wine factories throughout the Balkans.

That happened in Croatia, that happened in Romania, it happened in Bulgaria, it happened in North Macedonia, you know, it happened in Montenegro, it happened everywhere. But all of the vineyard acreage throughout each of these countries was collectivized, and the winemaking was given over to people that were much more concerned with creating a shelf-stable, consistent product that was cheap and readily available, much more concerned with that than they were with any kind of local tradition for the sake of, you know, history and Malvasia rages on the skins, or, God forbid, quality. And when all of these states, which universally, you know, were under state-sponsored rule, economic rule, throughout the Cold War, when they emerged, from that, you know, misadventure, they had to rebuild their wine industries, and they had to kind of recreate a sense of tradition.

You know, the seeds were there for the sake of grandfathers and, you know, great-grandfathers, but they had to recreate, you know, these vineyards and reimagine the wines as they were. And Dmitry Bechevich is one of the producers, you know, kind of at the forefront of that in Istria. He works with Malvasia, he equally works with the other local grapes, Turan and Rofosk, which is shared across the border in Slovenia. Slovenia is a bit like Moldova, in the sense that it can culturally be considered part of the larger Balkans, especially because it was part of the former Yugoslavia. But it is culturally very Italian, and sometimes it's not grouped with the Balkan states. And we have already gotten to Slovenia for the sake of our wine school adventure.

So, you know, we're going to get to Slovenia. So we decided to, you know, you know, venture in a different direction for the sake of this lesson. Yes, he does look like an honest guy to him being Heidi. He's not a supermodel. He's wearing a simple, you know, fleece vest, which feels very like a winemaker to me. You know, that's what most of them wear. Kind of cool. You see a repurposing of, in a lot of these regions, the industrial era, you know, technologies that are, you know, characterized, winemaking behind the Iron Curtain, and now repurposed for, you know, more altruistic usage. So this is essentially a Tito-era, you know, industrial bunker that Dimitri has repurposed for his winery.

And the producer that David spoke to, the Romanian producer with Kikas Castle, that we're going to visit in, you know, later in the course of this lesson, equally took what, you know, under the Soviet era they had created for the sake of producing wine at scale and have reimagined it for more artisanal purposes. And, you know, I think that's really poetic for the sake of this journey, because Pekentem, very much not an industrial product, very much in the realm of kind of, you know, I wouldn't go so far as to say, you know, like super natty, but definitely like kind of a non-interventionist kind of wine that was. Yeah, we should have brought in some like old Soviet bottles. I don't know how they're aging.

But again, you know, something like deeply sad about the Soviet era wines for me, you know, just like alcoholic soda pop to drink away, you know, the sorrows of living in drab, you know, Soviet-era concrete, you know, tenements. Yeah, there's an air of desperation to those wines that, you know, thankfully, they have started to cast off for the sake of this new era. Yeah, I feel like Sutter Home is, you know, kind of the closest analog for the sake of modern wine. I think, you know, in general, you know, there's something dystopian about, you know, commercial wine at scale. You know, that feels very, you know, Soviet in and of its own right. And, you know, thankfully, you know, these wines are the end of an era. So, I see Croatia again here.

We are switching gears, going to be moving into Bosnia-Herzegovina. Heidi, name-drop the Bronich. Bronich has an amazing spirit animal. Bronich is the Black Stallion. That's right. So, those of you drinking Bronich are drinking the Black Stallion. It is from Herzegovina. Herzegovina is at the bottom edge of Bosnia. Bosnia, home to the Bosniaks. Which they were historically, the Bosniaks, converts. So, throughout the Ottoman era, the Ottomans managed to win some converts to their state religion, Islam. They were much more accepting, largely, of various other religious groups under the Ottoman Empire. Typically, Jews and Christians had to pay a tax, essentially, to the estate to maintain their religious autonomy. But they could, in many instances, worship in peace. And even in many of these corners of the Ottoman Empire, they could still make wine for their own consumption.

They just couldn't actively sell it for the rest of the population. And it was still very much verboten for the sake of, you know, you know, observant Islam's to drink it. This wine, you know, hugely emblematic of wines from, you know, the larger peninsula. From an honest to God, monastery made by honest to God motherfucking monks. This is a monastery, Tirdos. It dates back centuries upon centuries. So, it was in the possession of the Serbian king in the 13th century, but was founded earlier in the Middle Ages. It's been rebuilt many times. Today, the estate includes a cellar dating back to the 15th century. Branic is really the most important red, kind of, Trans-Bulcan varietal. It is closely related to Tribagdrag, which you may otherwise know as Primitivo or Zinfandel.

And it has a lot of that glass-staining, you know, character that we expect out of our Zin. So, those of you who like your wines bigger, bolder, you know, you're gonna dig this one. Those of you that, you know, dig a Cale Zin, you're gonna dig this one. You can't name-drop the monks without showing off the monks. So, So this is, you know, what is, there's nothing better than that. Look at these, you know, I would imagine they're Serbian Orthodox monks, but, you know, they are, you know, in full method costume, tending the vines, working the land, you know, they look happy about it. You know, that feels like a much easier way to make a living than what I've decided to do.

But I think the kind of cool thing about this particular producer is that they continue to utilize the ancient vessels, the ancient oak that exists throughout their cellars, and they continue to raise their greatest wines in, you know, their larger oak vessels. And, you know, to my mind, this particular offering, it shows some of that oak influence, but, you know, I think the predominant perception is. is one of that, you know, bigger, bolder, full fruit. And, you know, it is no shrinking violet, this particular offering. And, you know, I think it's one that, you know, goes with, you know, bigger, bolder foods. I like to imagine a bunch of chain-smoking Serbian dudes, you know, sitting outside, you know, eating some kind of like heavy stew and, you know, noshing on brownish made by monks.

That just feels right to me at any rate. There is quite a bit of wine made in Bosnia-Herzegovina. You know, it's not the largest producer in the region, but the bulk of it, I should say, comes from Herzegovina. So Bosnia-Herzegovina culturally share quite a bit in common, but it is important to note that the hyphen's a thing. So Bosnia, one region. Herzegovina, the other. So Herzegovina definition has changed throughout the centuries, but it is the orange region here in Bosnia to the north. So it is not, you know, Bosnia slash, which means Bosnia and Herzegovina, if you're speaking properly. So the further balkanization of an already balkanized region for the sake of that one. And again, you know, really kind of like the show horse.

You know, kind of native Balkan variety for the sake of the black stallion that is Ronich here. And, you know, a wine that I hope you're all enjoying at home. That's going to bring us to a Serbian example now. And we're going to have a couple of Serbian wines. The Serbians, they were the Orthodox, the Serbian Orthodox Church, really kind of, you know, the most important counterweight, such as it was the Ottoman Empire. They basically started the first world war. Gavrilo Princip was a kind of like a pan-South Slavic, Slavic nationalist. And he envisioned a unified Yugoslavia for before, you know, well before it became a reality. I feel like Yugoslavia definitely should have been part or given right. Gavrilo Princip, rather, should have been part of Bingo, where we're playing.

But it's a missed opportunity. At any rate, the Serbs historically have made a lot of wine. Serbia makes wine across the region from a number of different varietals. It should be said that Ronich is one of them, chiefly in the western part of the country. But in this case before me, you can see Serbia here with the breakaway Albanian Republic of Kosovo. In this case, we have measures for an orange wine. Also sent around a delightful Serbian Riesling. So the Serbian Riesling is from just north of the Kosovo border there. It comes from Vino Budimir, which has this amazing story. The story goes that the king of Serbia in 1878 stopped by Vino Budimir, the estate that is now Vino Budimir, on his way out of Belgrade.

Tried the wine, loved it so much, he made it the crown's official supplier. Flash forward many centuries, and the estate managed to survive the communist era intact. And as some of the oldest plantings of Riesling in the region, the vines for the Riesling that you all have at home were planted in 1965. It is a challenging wine, this Riesling, because it spends the better part of a month on the skins. It is huge. It is hugely vegetal, and it has quite a bit of age to it, as of 2012. If you have the Riesling, please let me know what you think of it. It is 24 months in nutrients, Serbian oak. So this is not a pretty floral Riesling, a popular estimation.

It should be said there is quite a bit of what they typically locally call Rhine Riesling throughout this region. But more widely grown is what we know as a Welsh Riesling, which ironically is not related to Riesling. It all gets very confusing. But in this case, we have Rhine Riesling, and a very savory wine at that, but made in a very traditional style on the skins. The next wine before me now is a delightfully orange one that we're currently serving by the glass at the Reveler's Hour. This is Misces Ferrer, which you may know in Serbia as Madonna's Belly. Misces Ferrer is a name. It's a name ascribed to it in Hungary. And this winery is essentially along the Hungarian border. So that'd be the far northern edge of Serbia here.

And then there would be a mountain range just to the south, wherein this particular batch of fruit lies, a mountain range called Frusca Gora. This is kind of the hipster bingo of wines. And, you know, I will say for the sake of this one, it exists at the center of, you know, the hipster sommelier Venn diagram. This wine has everything. To quote Stefan, it has betritized grapes. So this is the moldy fruit on the vine. This is, you know, that peach that's hanging out in the basket. And, you know, you're debating whether or not to eat it. Maybe throw it in the jam. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Historically, historically, those, you know, grapes, they go into, you know, sweeter ones because that, you know, kind of telltale funk that you get out of those betritized wines.

You know, ultimately, that is something that, you know, works better with the sweetened flavor profile. In this case, they've chosen to throw some of that fruit in the mix for the sake of a dry wine on the skins. Over two weeks on the skins. And then this wine is aged like sherry. Which is. Let's say they give it headspace in the cask. The wine is oxidized over time in the barrel. And it has this, you know, delightfully savory dimension to it, ultimately in the glass. And what I adore about it is it manages to transcend all of these hipster, you know, kind of interventions. And it is singularly delicious and harmonious at the end of the day. Zoe is with us. Zoe has emerged from her fugue state.

Thank you so much for joining us, Zoe. To everyone enjoying this at home, thank you for putting up with me. You know, I feel like I should have, you know, consumed a little more coffee. I want to do justice to this incredibly diverse region. So, yes, this is a little bit like speed dating. I feel like we should have had a speed dating card, you know, like the 40-year-old virgin inspired speed dating card. Not for the sake of these wines. But, you know, it just goes to show how much diversity there is. And, you know, we were covering a region that is every bit as, you know, substantive as the other major southern peninsulas of Europe, those being the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula. It has as much to offer as both of those places.

But it is just now, you know, kind of slowly but surely coming into its own. And, you know, for the sake of doing it justice, you know, we wanted to try to, you know, cover as much ground as humanly possible. You know, as humanly possible. And that means that, you know, I'm getting my speed talk on here. I'll give Zoe a chance to come up to speed. I hope at the very least you all enjoying these individual offerings at home. We're going to move now from Serbia into yet another corner of the country. We're going to bypass a couple others. We could kind of like. Pour a glass or two out for. So we just tasted a pair of orange wine.

So, kind of, orange Riesling and measures for air with Hungarian inflections from the northern edge of Serbia on the Hungarian border. And we're going to move into North Macedonia, which is to say the former Yugoslav Republic. The artist formerly known as Macedonia. But the Macedonians lost a court case. They lost their battle with the European Court of Arbitration to hang on to their name. So we should, you know, draw a massive line through Macedonia here. Macedonia is now known as North Macedonia. Everyone. We are skipping over Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania, each in its own way, a huge center production in the Soviet era and in the ancient era. My good friend Kreshnik is not listening. But he is Kosovo, Albanian, and he'd be very upset that I didn't manage to wrangle any Albanian wines.

There are some delightful, lighter, woodsy or red wines from northern Albania that I've had before that are Wunderbach, but sadly no longer available in this market. And we're going to slide down to Alexander the Great's stomping ground. But before we do, I want to give Zoe a chance to intercede here. Welcome, Zoe. Are you recovered from our Thursday night with Amanda from Chidiwine Mames? I am. I'm so sorry I'm late. I put 'class' in on Sunday's week schedule for mine. Whatever. I'm so sorry I've missed. No, it's a pleasure to have you all with us, Zoe. The question being, what have I missed? Everybody is thoroughly enjoying the Reuben. Everyone, there seems to be consensus that I'm doing my best micro machine impression. What's this?

Well, we have a seven-point judged the whole time we've been not fitting John for the sake of covering at least seven countries that were hitting, for the sake of the individual wines that we're covering today, trying to draw out some through lines for the sake of modern producers working with ancient varietals in a more non-interventionist way. And we equally decided that Sutter Homes is the Soviet wine of the modern American era. Do you have any, um, you know, favorable or less favorable experiences with, um, uh kind of bulk in wines yourself? Zoe and is it a region that you know in your own course of wine study um really emerged on your radar until you know the last, you know, five to ten years or so well.

When I was in college, I studied abroad in Italy and then the winter break in between the semesters, I was not making a lot of money as a poor college student and so going back to America was super expensive and I ended up going to um Hungary and then working my way down and then meeting my friends in Greece but for a month, I got to like backpack through Eastern Europe which was a lot of fun and I like would stop by in Slovenia and I thought that I would only spend you know three days there and I would end up I ended up spending a week and a half there because I fell

in love with it so much, um, but I just think that that part of the country or that part of the world is so wonderful and I know such little about it, um, previous to that trip and that it was super important to me, and I think that it was super important to me, and I think that it was super enlightening in the way that I got to know; it was obviously by drinking wine, that I didn't know how to pronounce, I don't know how to pronounce any of them either, yeah, yeah, consistent through line between there, nice it is, it's a lot of vowels. Uh, particularly um in you know the Serbo-Croat languages,

it's just it's just a lot of vowels, um, you know, and and you gotta you gotta do the best that you can, um, uh, at any rate, um, you know, uh, particularly struck by, um, you know, in revisiting his wines, you know, um, uh, how how you know dynamic, um, and uh, you know, interesting, the local styles are, and I obviously get particularly excited about the wines on the skins, um, you know, that is something that has come to the fore for the sake of, um, sommeliers like myself, but has deep roots in this corner of the world, um, I lament that we sold through uh, the last of the history in Malvasia because I Adore that wine, and it was out of stock when I tried to bring in more.

Um, I should be landing next week, so we're hoping to um, you know, bring it back in for those of you who, you know, aren't able um, to uh, enjoy it now and are having to look vicariously through our descriptions, you know, especially for aromatic, more aromatic grapes. Uh, that time on the skins just gives this, you know, really, you know, hugely fascinating uh dimension of taste and texture, um, that's not available otherwise. And, of course, obviously, um, you know, the Soviets weren't very interested in, you know, the local orange, satisfying the local orange wine market. but thankfully you know producers like uh Pekintum um you know producers like um uh Maurer producers like Budamerich in in their own right um you know are interested in making wine in kind of more historic styles um and you know we're hugely excited about that uh which brings us to um uh the you know one of our favorite um Georgian varietals um for the sake of uh Cozzatelli so uh I name dropped the kind of uh existential crisis for the sake of having to rebrand geographically you see it here uh landlocked north of Greece um the region that term is so contentious is because uh historically it was ascribed to a a much larger um region than uh it is today and I have a delightful map of kind of like the historic Macedonia um this is like Alexander the Great's Macedonia versus Macedonia today so you get a sense of you know that dotted line encompassing the geographical Macedonia which includes part of northern Greece um and uh the Greeks have won their battle uh to state primacy over Macedonia as their own um uh and you know uh you get a sense of uh uh the fact that you know North Macedonia uh occupies the northern part of that historic zone so the name is um you know uh not uh much of a leap of faith uh it is a really um auspicious place uh to take wine uh this particular producer Stobie um is uh essentially a reimagined uh reimagined cooperative so uh we name dropped that for the sake of the pecantum um that particular producer having uh occupied um what was you know a a underground communist or a bunker and eliminated as a wine cellar in this case we have occupied a former um you know kind of commercial winery and or capitalized through economic activity or through friends cualquier educational activity this is what your style and um this is the teak fish valley um uh can get over 300 days of sun a year which is um you know more than you know the sunniest corner Most of the sunniest corners of the continent, um, when we say continental climate here, um, we are, you know, denoting a region that doesn't have a maritime influence or a Mediterranean influence for the sake of seasonal variation and typically implies a region that has, you know, hotter, drier summers and cooler, wetter winters.

Here, the summers are very hot and dry, get well over above 100 degrees, which is, uh, really good for Casatelli, um, and, uh, the winemaker here kind of wanted to make, uh, their Casatelli, which is a native Georgian varietal, um, in more of a Saperavi-like kind of style, so they wanted to make something. That was bright and crisp, uh, and fruity, um, and clean, uh, but from a grape that was more heat-tolerant, um, than Sabi Bee, Sabi Bee wouldn't do particularly well here because it doesn't thrive in places that you know, in the heart of summer, are as hot as the Deep Fish Valley, uh, can be, um, but uh, Stobie uh, makes matter-of-factly delicious wines, um, they do so at scale, they have some of the largest continue uh contiguous vineyard acreage on the continent, um, so this is not uh, a small hipster seller, this is commercial wine, um, you know, they um, use inoculated yeast but they do so in a really effective and uh, fluid and successful way, uh, to my mind. um uh you know the teak fish um uh casatelli is just kind of a matter of factly uh delicious wine um and you know it is you know not thrilling in a high wire act of winemaking kind of way um it is just something that you know you want to drink full side on a good day or want to drink on a friday night when you've had a tough week um and your hipster restaurant owner husband brings home the latest orange wine and you want to tell him to buy it um so i think it's just a good wine uh for that and worth worth celebrating um uh certainly as such and that's another one uh that we're going to revisit um you know i i enjoyed it so much that we kind of uh brought it back and made it our um you know uh resident pinot grigio alternative  we're gonna kind of uh fly through um uh the next couple so um if you thought we were speed dating before look out strap in um because uh we have moldovan wine uh to get to um and i want to make sure uh we don't give it a short trip because we have someone joining us all the way from october um so uh bulgaria uh working your way um east and north um this is a bulgarian wine map uh they are proposed have proposed um uh kind of further delineating it you can see there are further delineations here but at the moment uh geographically you're either close to danube or close to thrace thrace is uh the part of uh turkey on the continental european side and then you're either close to danube or you're either close to the bosporus um bulgaria deep winemaking roots uh we recently started working with an amazing bulgarian importer um these wines are stunning we have a gamza um uh gamza uh you may better know as kadarka in serbia or kalmut albanians uh most widely known were great or in hungary uh forget to budai uh that's my personal favorite um but uh as gamza regardless of where it is it is an ethereal kind of rosé adjacent red um and easy drinking um but uh in my hands i have uh the Ruben, uh, Ruben. That's a local crossing Nebbiolo and Sarah, uh, you know it took Bulgarians to combine two of my favorite grapes. What's up Bulgaria? Well done, good on you! Um, and this comes from two uh remarkably talented um uh Bulgarians.

They're in the Thracian Valley, so they're kicking it in the purple zone of our map there um, and uh they have studied all over the world which I think is kind of interesting to see um, and they're kind of fascinating because you know the great problem of one of the great problems of you know uh Balkan history is that the people were insular and not inclined to collaborate and you know uh they you know uh were standoffish and you know uh enforce their own isolation enforce um their own disunity um but uh there's something about the wine world there's something about working with grapes in the vineyard that inspires collaboration uh these gentlemen have worked uh being proud bulgarians they wanted to come back and focus on native bulgarian grapes in launching their own um winery and um they are one of my favorite new kind of like discoveries of uh last year um uh uh surgib milk is their label um so for those of you uh playing along at home that is um i believe it's peter gergiev and uh fuck i'm forgetting uh mitchell's Name now, but uh, it'll come to me, uh, if you're done, but um, their wines are uniformly uh non-interventionist in a vicious uh style, um, this is stunning, um, uh, it's very Pinot adjacent to my mind, you definitely suss out the Nebbiola roots, but to me it's more like that Alto Pimon tasty red as opposed to that like full throttle um Barolo, um, or you know kind of Barbaresco, uh, Zoe.

I feel guilty that I didn't open one of these for you on um Thursday not that we needed any more wine at that uh point in the night, but um, uh, it's glorious and I promise you'll get to try it at some point in the not too distant future, um, Bulgaria was one of the largest producers of wine um during the soviet era uh at one point um in uh the soviet in the midst of you know kind of the soviet era it was actually the um world's largest like fourth largest producer um mostly really sucked um but some of it didn't um and uh you know uh it is uh an emerging wine region that you know i'm you know excited to continue to explore uh closing things out in romania um i always want to cue the dracula music for the sake of this one so we are in transylvania thank you for putting up with me there um this is you know the point that the speed dating where i alienate any mutual potential suitors um uh Just because you know I've been talking too long and um, I'm pre-associating but uh, Fetiaska Alba um is uh historically most important native white grape in um, Romania particularly in Transylvania. Romania is a uh tiny outpost of Latin tradition in a sea of South Slavic um uh peoples um uh Romanians; a Romance language um uh they are currently the largest uh wine producer in the Balkans, most of it um uh services the domestic market. I can see depending on where you are, you're either in a rain shadow of the Carpathians if you're south and east and making mostly red wine or you are at elevation in Transylvania working with uh predominantly white varietals um this comes from the largest contiguous vineyard in europe so the biggest single vineyard in europe owned by a single producer uh those of you studying for future vineyards in europe are the largest single vineyard in europe so the biggest single vineyard in europe um this next production of the single vineyard later in the digital vineyard overAHLM is uh being held in hum choix and this is the is in 잊은 Romania is a вони castle and uh this is their like owners select offering from fetiasca alba um uh it's not that путasa means maiden in romanian um uh alba is the most kind of historic form Of the varietal, um, there's a more aromatic form called Regala that's more highly esteemed and uh Niagara which is the black maiden which is you know red oak um this one doesn't suck this is matter of fact I think I paid like eight, nine bucks for this wholesale.

Um, it is remarkably delicious. There's a castle associated with it. You know, I am here, uh, for, uh, this particular one, um, you know, uh, and, you know, I feel like, uh, Transylvania should be, uh, kind of, um, you know, famous for its red wines. It feels, you know, hugely ironic that Transylvania is famous for white wines. Um, but, uh, at any rate, um, you know, this, this is one, um, you know, that is, that's certainly, uh, well, we're celebrating, uh, before, uh, we get to our, um, uh, hugely exciting Moldovan, uh, coda to our Vulcan speed dating adventure. Zoe, do you have any questions or, um, you know, action items that I have, uh, missed? Absolutely. Um, could you just, um, pronounce the grape that's in, uh, um, Roman, the Romania Maria again?

Not well, uh, I will. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, uh, um, and I will say, I have no idea what the little, uh, inflections on the A do. Um, that's one of those accent marks you really have to dig for. Um, you know, normally, uh, with the accent marks, it's relatively easy. Um, you just hold down the relevant letter and they give you options. Um, you can hold down A until the cows come home and they're not giving you the Romanian A. Um, I had to cut and paste this. Um, uh, you know, Google recognized it, but, um, it was, it was a work in, it was a work in progress. Um, but, uh, it's, it's remarkable, uh, uh, nonetheless.

Um, and, uh, you know, it is the most widely grown or one of the most widely grown white varietals in Romania. And historically it is the most significant, um, uh, Romanian grape. Uh, what else you got for me, Zoe? Um, is this a castle wine, the cellar, or is that the winery where you can drive a car? No, we're getting there. Hold the phones. Yeah. Drum roll, please. Uh, what else, what else, what else you got, Zoe? That could have been a good segue. Um, I think we have, um, a little bit of like a FOMO of, of post, of post wine class. Um, and, and Sunita in particular said how helpful it's been that, you know, she likes X and you're always able to tell her, you know, what else you may like in that.

Um, how does, how does everyone continue the journey from here, Bill? Um, I don't know. Uh, uh, I'm excited to find out, Zoe. Um, uh, it reminds me of the middle school dance. This would be the point, uh, at which, um, I would awkwardly dance with a girl who was pining for, who was like taller than I was at, you know, uh, that point in my eighth grade life. And, um, you know, we would, uh, you know, uh, sway back and forth to 'boys to men.' Um, and, you know, who knows what high school has in store for us, but, uh, you know, there certainly will be a continuation of this journey in some shape, size, or form, Zoe. That much I do know.

Um, uh, and, you know, we may or may not, um, uh, taste wine until the end of the road, uh, at some point, uh, in, in this voyage. But, um, yeah, the, the journey, the journey never ends. Um, you know, the road, the road goes on forever and, you know, that's the amazing thing about the wine world. Um, and, you know, for me, that's kind of like, uh, the poetic thing about this particular line of inquiry is, you know, um, there, there's so much tradition here. Um, you know, I, I spoke in, or I referenced the Wine Atlas, um, the original invitation and you know um uh janice was uh kind enough to give me a first edition and uh it's really been really fun to thumb through because it's you know the wine world uh that existed uh you know in the 70s when hugh johnson uh first published it this before janice robinson came on board it was so much smaller you know that's not to say that you know they weren't making shitty wine um you know in romania and bulgaria at that point in time they were but it wasn't wine that had you know much to say about romania and bulgaria it said more about the you know um you know kind of miseries of the soviet you know proletariat that were drowning their sorrows with it um but you know that that is changing and and you know it's exciting to me that you know uh in a generation from now you know romania will have 10 pages and the wine atlas will be even better you know than than it is now and you know that is um you know the most exciting thing about the journey of uh knowing wine and learning wine is you know it's an onion you feel back but the onion keeps growing as you're as you're feeling too so um thanks for asking um let's get to that cellar um because we have uh uh to to get to and give proper shifts to uh moldova uh for the sake of uh this journey so uh moldova um is a former soviet republic uh mentioned the fact um that it is the um 20th smallest country on earth it is the 11th largest producer of wine um in continental europe which is pretty remarkable i see moldova here it is landlocked um it it so desperately wants To touch the Black Sea, but Ukraine puts the kibosh on it, um uh you get a sense that for the uh given its size, for a relatively small uh country, um uh you know well on the western border, most of those sides are lions.

The total vineyard acreage has shrunk considerably since Gorbachev's history, but the plains are less wooded, major but the plains are shown rather pebbly and sparse over the years. Push against alcohol, boo, and the aftermath of privatization. But the country still has over 200,000 acres. That is less than half of what it had at its apogee of just Vinifera vines plus additional other cultivars. And, additionally, as you all mentioned, it has some of the largest wine cellars in the world. And Krakova, if you're enjoying our Cabernet Sauvignon, you're enjoying a wine that possesses the second largest wine cellar in the world. And it is gaudy, it is huge, it is awesome, it is amazing. I should have done this as a slideshow, but this is the Krakova cellar.

It has a map, you can see the map there in the difference. Moldova, particularly, well-suited to these massive cellars. Because it is just a lot of kind of soft but durable limestone underneath its major central region. This is a map of said cellar. Not many zones to the cellar. You've got your fine wine factory, and your sparkling wine factory, which reminds me of the Itchy and Scratchy Land episode of The Simpsons, where the parking lot is divided between the itchy lot and the scratchy lot. lot. So if you park your car in the cellar, you're either in the fine wine zone or the sparkling wine zone, which is not very helpful, but at least it's a start. But wait, it gets gaudier from there.

If we keep going, this is the Little Mermaid set that I'm particularly excited about. Maybe for your next birthday, maybe for an anniversary, maybe for quinceañera. I feel like, you know, a la boozy quinceañera feels really great. Dolphins, really nice. I feel like you could do like a sailor theme if you were like bridesmaids, like, you know, something to offer everybody. And I don't know how much it costs to book these individual venues, but I'm excited about the possibilities. For your next kind of global summit meeting, I recommend this affair. Long stately table for diplomats. It definitely looks like it's going to be a lot of fun. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. Looks like the long table from Coming to America that necessitates an intercom to communicate from one side to the next.

Love the, you know, plush leather, you know, kind of thing happening with the chairs and the stained glass windows. Are we operating under any delusion that we're in a cave? I mean, come on. What gives? But it's just a really nice touch. We've got one more here. Someone named dropped the fact that you can drive through these wine caves. Yes, you can. Emerging opportunities for winemakers here. I love this. I hope, I deeply hope that this is the resident winemaker tasting from barrel to barrel in like a subcompact car. I mean, that is the height of luxury. If you are making the rounds, tasting barrel to barrel, you know, do it in, you know, an 80's sedan. You go, Krivkova.

And then lastly, but not least, the Moldovans, albeit culturally Romanian, Moldovan language, very close to Romanian, although they are at pains, obviously, to distinguish it from, you know, Romanian as such. They had very close ties in the modern era to Russia. The breakaway republic I referenced earlier essentially is a breakaway republic because they wish they were Russian. None other than Vladimir Putin celebrated his 50th birthday in these cellars, and he still keeps wine there. You get it, Vlad. He said, 'this is good.' This is like a nice little corner of the cellar. You know, those look like appropriately old bottles. It should be said that the Moldovans are not only indulging Putin for the sake of his, his wine collecting. Angela Merkel has her own corner of the cellar.

Other world leaders, John Kerry visited, had his own corner of the cellar. So I want to make sure that, you know, we are not, you know, endorsing Vladimir Putin as such. We are just shamelessly opening as many markets as humanly possible for the sake of, you know, our wine business. Without further ado, Victoria, if you're out there still, I hope you are. Victoria Gellis has been in the State Department for many moons, is currently stationed abroad in Moldova, has been begging me to feature Moldovan wine since the beginning of our wine journey. Moldova has a National Wine Day, which celebrates every year on the second weekend of October. And we have been featuring the second largest wine cellar in the world.

Moldova also claims the largest wine cellar in the world, in addition to the second, the largest and the second largest. That's pretty badass. The Capsop doesn't suck. In 2000, we also were featuring Saperavi from Chateau Bertelli. That's another one. I'm a large Moldovan producer. For whatever reason, for the sake of the juice that's made it our way, we haven't - I haven't been able to unlock the hipster Moldovan wine, you know, kind of market the way that the hipster Bulgarians and hipster Serbians are coming to me. Hopefully, it's a growth industry, but we will see. And, you know, I make fun - you know, we, we make light of the garishness of the old cellars. But, you know, it does speak to me to all the blind spots that, you know, I have, you know, I've, I've been on a professional wine journey for the better part of, you know, a decade and a half now.

And, you know, there's still all these corners of the wine world where wine is, you know, this profound, deeply entwined part of, of national life that I, you know, am still ignorant about. And, you know, that speaks to just how deep, you know, this, this rabbit hole, you know, goes. And, and, and I think that's, that's really, that's really special. And in Moldova, historically, the industry was, was geared toward, you know, kind of larger volumes of wine to service the Russian market, but increasingly they are targeting the Western market. And, Victoria, yes, yes, it is shaped like grapes. Although I question, I question, Victoria, you chimed in. Victoria, would you like to unmute yourself and say something about Moldova? Please just do so, cut me off by all means, if you like.

I've been talking breathlessly about Moldova and I hope doing it not a disservice, but Moldova is indeed shaped like a grape bunch, or at least a claim. As much as there's an image that testifies to its characteristic shape that I may or may not download it. And I'm hoping to find at some point in the not too distant future. But Victoria, come on. I think you're doing it great justice. And I think from the chat, I think you may have another Moldovan wine expert participating, but I would just say that I'm only sorry. You've got a lot of things that would meet your hipster bingo here, but the wine market strategy is focused more on other markets than the United States right now, so that you can't find them per se for purchase right now.

There's a great growth in small producers and all the associated trades like label art and such. So it's really an exciting time and a total reorientation from the bulk production to export that happened in the earlier 2000s. And I think wine is a really cool diplomatic implement for the sake of self-power. You've seen that in a lot of Eastern European zones that were formerly in the kind of Soviet sway in places like Georgia, in places like Moldova. There's been a lot of investment by the European Union and by USAID for the sake of diversifying and and kind of ennobling the industries of these zones. Have you done any of that work with State, Victoria? I'm actually with USAID, so. Oh, great.

So I know a lot about it, but I'm on the democracy and governance team, though I invite myself to all of our wine events. We were the primary and most important donor after the Russian blockade for Moldovan exports, after Moldova signed on the EU Association Agreement, and then the principal founded a reorganized legislation and policy and began to transition them to quality production from the bulk. Yeah, the Russian market was kind of a gift and a curse in the sense that it was an assured market, and they continue to buy a lot of Moldovan wine, but the kind of wine that they buy doesn't support smaller independent wineries and has no support, not kind of facilitated the diversification of the industry and modernization of the industry.

And the Russians decided to boycott not only Georgian wine in the early off, but also Moldovan wine. And it ended up being a blessing in disguise for the Moldovans. I don't know, would they think of it that way today, or are they still crushed by the Russian boycott? I don't know if I could speak for everybody, but I think it's been significant because it affected all agricultural products, this being a big agricultural country, not just wine. So being able to shift and also start to create a tourism industry around wine and culture has been pretty important. Where you feel all this may have to do with your political leaning, the country public opinion is about evenly split between pro-EU and pro-Russia. Oh, interesting. So it did probably a bit like Ukraine that way, I imagine.

Exactly. Very good. What has your experience of touring wineries in the country been like? Oh, well, that would be like a three-hour conversation. But it's one of the really most, I think, exciting things from my three and a half years here has been the growth in small production, which already existed, but the number of producers has grown and there's new places coming online, what seems like regularly. And they have, so you have a lot of access to the winemaker. So in terms of someone who's had a long time passion for wine and does my WSET study, it's been really great to have that dialogue with someone in here about things in a really technical and creative way.

And then there's some of them are opening small hotels so you can walk around the vines, stay overnight, really kind of explore like all of the things around enjoying wine. So the wine worth drinking largely in terms of the wine from more interesting independent producers has yet to make its way stateside. What are the more favorable markets for it on the continent? I should have invited my economic growth colleagues who actually, as I could tell you a lot more about parliamentary structure and the constitution here as the democracy and governance person, but actually from small producers into Romania and to other EU countries, but a lot of the wines as they grow, there's a lot of focus on export to China right now. And I understand some companies are buying and then buying, bottling and labeling themselves.

So it's not necessarily being branded as Moldovan when it goes at Porcar, which is one of the larger wineries here. They do a lot of export to China. Have you been to the Krikova cellars? I have not because you later will see my comment in the chat that I boycott them because they're proud of having Herman Göring's wine collection as the most valuable part of their cellar and they show it off with pride during the tour. So I won't go to their cellar and I won't drink their wine. That's boycottable. I didn't realize; I was aware that they had acquired wines when the Soviets assumed control of the Nazi collection. I wasn't aware that they were, as it seems, quite as proud of it as they apparently are.

Also, their wine - I can't speak to the 2000 since I don't have it; I'm drinking the Saporavi, but their modern-day still wine is just bad. I will speak too. So I still retain, even though this is a bit of an art project for the sake of our business, I still retain a shred of businessman in me. So my honest assessment of the 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon from Krikova is that it's past its prime, but still worth drinking. Krikova's, I guess their main claim to fame is their sparkling wine. And they're method Champenois wine, which I've never tried. And I won't try, knowing that they're as proud of Hermann Goyen's collection as they are. But the Cabernet Sauvignon is interesting. It's $20 wholesale bottle of wine with 20 years' worth of age on it and interesting as such.

But yeah, it's fascinating the way all that stuff plays out. So Château Portelli is the producer on the Saporavi. I'm hoping that they don't celebrate former Nazi cellar collections. Have you visited them? I have been there, but I haven't done a wine tasting there. OK. I haven't been at the restaurant, but I enjoy their wines. Yeah, it looks idyllic. It's a more, and it's actually pretty slick for the sake of, I don't have a picture of it. Actually, I might have a picture of it. I think I downloaded it as much. But yeah. It looks like you could drop it in Napa, and you wouldn't blink. It's one of those kind of, they have this spotlight small vineyard in the front of the Winery building. And it looks like a pretty sophisticated operation.

And I really enjoy the Saporavi. A Saporavi can be a difficult grape to work with, because it is so acid-driven and so high in tannins. But I thought they did a really nice job of kind of reigning it and entertaining it. I want to give you kind of one final word here, Victoria. But you have been a huge part of this community for a long time, and I thank you for that; but equally vocal about wanting to feature Moldovan wines. Obviously, you have chips in the pot. But to your mind, what is so special about this place and its wine culture? I think there's really a spirit of creativity. And because of the size of the country, there's a real connection with land here that you may find in other wine-producing countries on a regional basis, which I think really is pervasive here across the country.

I think also, you know, when you're when you start to really explore, there are things that I'm still learning, that there are small but significant climate differences between the three regions that are really impacting which grapes grow well, which surprised me, given the size of the country. So I feel like you can actually get a lot more layered exploration here than anyone would assume. And I'll make one last plug for, for a long time, there really was no sparkling besides Krikoa, which makes it hard to do the boycott. But in the last year and a half, there's become a lot of other producers which have been coming online with some really interesting sparkling. Gogu has one. Nova. There's the first sort of pet not here that I've been able to buy.

So things are really changing in that direction as well. Super cool. Well, thank you so much. It's an honor. And I hope we did the subject justice. And I will continue to seek out Moldovan wine from producers that don't celebrate their Nazi-era affiliations. This is the grape bunch that is Moldova for those of you playing along at home. So. And that's actually kind of cool because if you imagine Moldova as a grape brunch, you would kind of, yeah, it actually looks like a grape bunch, looks on the vine. Not like most people imagine grapes to look. But it's three or four regions depending on, Balti is variously included, but Kodur, the most significant region in and around the capital, Stefan Voda. And. And the other two. And you're on the same latitude as Burgundy here.

We started with a quote from the Atlas and they were referencing the Western Balkans being on the same latitude as Italy. But here on the same latitude as Burgundy, it's a land of rolling hills that is this idyllic landscape and climate for wine. And I love. You know, the idea that it is this place is untapped. It is a place that lives with agriculture in a day-in and day-out, you know, kind of style that reminds me a lot of Georgia when I when I visited it. And, you know, I'm excited to see it continue to emerge and excited to hopefully seek out our wines from, you know, the smaller independent producers, the kind of wineries that, you know, we are one. I want to feature as a small independent restaurant.

So what do you got for us? Well, I do have two questions about Krikova, but now that they're nasty sympathizers, I don't know how we feel, but they are kind of facetious questions, so we'll roll with that. Yeah. When you're driving through the wine cellar, how is the exhaust affecting the wine? That's a good question. I don't I don't know. Obviously, it can't be exhausted. It can't be exhausted. Yes. Um. I didn't consider that dimension of my, you know, cellar driving fantasy. Maybe this is an electric car. Who knows? It's possible, certainly. But that didn't register for whatever reasons. There's also suggestions that it should have been a straight road because if you're stopping to enjoy any of the wines, trying to continue on this route without running into the barrels could become more challenging, yeah, but I mean, I like the degree of difficulty.

You know, I like points for points for degree of difficulty. Talk to us a little bit about Ukrainian wine, seeing as we kind of vote with our dollars and less with our votes sometimes. Ukrainian wine exists. That's about all I can say. It was a not insignificant source of wine in the Soviet era. Yeah. Ukraine is colder than Moldova. The only place they can make wine is close to the Black Sea because of the mitigating influence of the body of water. Ukraine, to my mind, is like more significant as a wine-growing region for the sake of its kind of role as a birthplace of Dr. Konstantin Frank, who came to Finger Lakes and is kind of like, though. father of um you know winemaking vinifera winemaking on the West Coast.

Um, uh, they incidentally both fought for the wine, the White Russians after um, the initial Russian civil wars, hugely fascinating to me. But um, yeah, it's a corner of the world that has a has a bigger has had a bigger imprint on American winemaking history than you might imagine. But Ukrainian wine, I don't know, I don't know how much of it's worth seeking out. Um, you know, I don't want to speak in close generalizations; I'm sure they're you know there is is somebody somewhere making Ukrainian wine that that is totally worth drinking and that you know, I'd want to bring in um, but I wouldn't know where to find it um, you know. That said uh, Ukraine is definitely one of those places that's going to be a global warming winner, so you know, in 100 years maybe Ukraine is going to be the Burgundy of you know, um, of you know Western Europe or yeah Eastern Eastern Europe, so that makes sense um.

Could you speak a little bit more about what you thought about the Saparavi? Was it as like rich and full as the Rubin or I thought it was? To me, there's a I tried it in um, I tried it out of sheer curiosity um, when we brought it in um, you know I did this ordering kind of conjecturally um, we haven't been doing tastings in person because of COVID and um yeah, and and it's just not a corner of the world that I'm familiar with uh, um intimately for the sake of having tried the ones uh, uh, but um, I read good things about this wine; the individual is kind of like a separate um, subset of wines from Bartelli um, and uh, Saperavi is a grape that I love, it's a problematic grape to work with because it's really thick skins and it's really high acid uh, so it can, it can make Punishingly tannic wines, uh, I thought, um, the individual was a, ah, someone called it the cougar to the, um, I don't know, I don't know what the what the uh, cougar to the something, but like, uh, um, uh, I but the, I think, the the gist of the, uh, metaphor was that you know it was a lighter, easier drinking version the same. And and I would, I would echo that for me by Saperavi standards, that was a very approachable Saperavi. Uh, it's a very like plush quality of fruit, um, and still, like retaining a fresh quality of fruit.

Whereas, um, the Vranac, to my mind, you know, the quality of fruit was much more um, you know, reduced was much more cooked, was Much more like high-acid tannic um, and you know it registered a little bit of that, like you know leather and um, something like even a little green about it because like the extremity on the back end, but green like herbal um, usually when you say green it can be pejorative for the sake of underripe, but in this case, like wintergreen, like camphor um, that kind of thing, but you know to my mind it was it was um, you know it was just a little, it was a little softer, a little pusher um, it was kind of cut from the same cloth as the Vranach for the sake of being like an extracted high-acid um inky wine um, but uh, just like a like a bistro version.

You know, a little less serious, but a great segue to a favorite and oldie question, which is, um, is there a frequent use of concrete eggs or clay in this area? Um, uh, both phenomenal questions, so, um, not for the best of my knowledge, um, uh, I think concrete egg would be great, um, uh, for Vranich, um, concrete egg tends to dampen the acid on wines, um, and tends to kind of like you know soften the rough edges and I think that's a natural fit for a grape like Vranich, so I think it would be great choice. Um, this is a heavily wooded area, um, the Balkans uh, uh, is a Turkish word that comes from, um, mountains, um, mountains a lot of forests and, and, so this is a region.

That historically supplied a lot of oak, um, particularly Slobonia, um, so if you've ever seen Slobonian oak on a label, it's actually from Croatia, um, which always liked blew my mind, um, when I first realized it, but or when I first told as much, but Slobonia isn't Slovenian, um, it doesn't help that there is actually Slovenian oak too, but Slobonia makes quite a bit of oak elsewhere in this region, there's Serbian oak, everybody kind of has their own local oak, and could make barrels from it, so um, traditionally it would be larger oak barrels as a fermentation vessel, almost universal, um, there isn't as far as I know, the same. tradition uh that there

was in georgia of using um clay vessels that persisted into the modern era that said zoe i wouldn't be shocked if there are small corners of the balkans that um preserved you know that you're just particularly in like north macedonia or albania that are as close to greece as they are um i certainly wouldn't be shocked but um uh uh to my mind like the the traditional fermentation vessel is like large and large neutral local oak um uh and again like ancient winemaking traditions but um you're talking it it's not like you know 89 came and we flipped a switch um privatization of the land took a long time you know uh winemaking um you know has this really slow rate of return so it's not really until like um 2005 2010 that you see a lot of these wineries coming online and emerging um as a uh you know kind of uh emerging on to the American market that's not to say that they they didn't emerge locally or on the continent but you know as far as the stuff that's successful to us um you know that's within the last decade and a half then bouncing back to the first wine um was it a blend of casatelli and beyond Blanc or were you just mentioning that it has some of the things no so um yeah that's a great question so um no it wasn't a blend At all the um, I'll afford, I read this interview from uh one of the women that works at the winery and she had stated her love for Sauvignon Blanc, and they said it was kind of a Casablanca styled after Sauvignon Blanc.

What can I, what I can tell you, they meant is that uh, given that they're a commercial winery and they work with um, uh, um, inoculated geese, what they did is uh, they took um riper fruit from Casablanca and they probably fermented it with a strain of yeast that's typically associated with like New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, um, uh, and that strain of yeast I would imagine, um, they didn't you know say as much in the interview but this is what I you know um uh you know kind of um saw in it all um uh imputed um so I imagine that they took that air map train piece that produces a lot of the characteristics that people like in Savi B and uh deployed it with their casatelli and uh that has led your product a lot of people door um you know yes you know that is a little more manipulative than you know I am you know I kind of I don't I wouldn't say like I'm not uncomfortable with it you know it's great you know if the end product works that works um and again I don't think it's a wine that contributes to human misery like it's matter of factly delicious and we're serving It by the glass, um, you know it doesn't conform to my, um, you know, uh, you know more, uh, fanciful notion of terroir and wines as, you know, vessels of place, you know, a little less, um, but, um, that's what they did, I think. They took, you know, local fruit and uh Savi bees and you know, they made costelli as aromatic, uh, Savi be strained, uh, entity.

Um, did it have residual sugar on it or is there just an assumed, um, ripeness and sweetness from yeah? So I, I actually talked a lot about the staff of that when we introduced it and and uh, we're training some new folks here, um, uh, and uh, I'm always at pains to differentiate between a perceptual, um, fullness for The sake of riper fruit in a wine and sweetness um, and uh, you know that's because on on the trade side, on the restaurant side, that's because if uh, I have a server in the describing a wine uh, the second they say sweet, you know uh, they've either poisoned the well um, or created uh, a perception that um, uh, is irrefutable for the sake of of a guest so you know the mirror inference of sweet will predispose um someone to perceive sweetness along um, you know in the case of that wine uh, the quality of fruit is so ripe that there is you know what you might call perceptual sweetness in it but empirically it's dry, empirically it's well below. the four gram per liter residual um uh you know threshold uh for a wine with you know sufficient acidity that we perceive as dry um you know precociousness of of the fruit uh that gives you the fullness of fruit that gives you that perception um uh that's psychological perception of sweetness in that wine at the end of the day it's all the questions so far um uh this has been emotional uh joy as always Zoe you are the best uh you're underpaid please stop by for for stoey um not so stop by for constantelli stop by for uh particularly Ruben um uh we are going to bring back some of your favorites uh for the sake of this lesson um uh I am um uh you know out of the weeds for the sake of my holiday in a January Adventure and uh I'm hoping to um issue recap um as of Tuesday um and we will uh bring in um uh you know kind of favorites forsake this lesson then uh you all wanna uh Ria um I just want to close out with the toast as always um and uh you know uh really um uh thanks for watching and uh I'll see you next time you all uh for joining us uh uh thank victoria uh for joining us from moldova for speaking so passionately to um uh what moldova has all for the wine world and uh just uh to celebrate on that after you know shit we're 59 lessons you know there are still these corners Of the world where um people live, eat, and drink wine; um, that we haven't celebrated there are still corners of the world um, you know, where um, you know where um you know this this thing that we're trying to understand; um, and and and you know uh, live with and exalt um, you know there's still places where people are intimately um, uh, enjoying it uh, in ways that we do not understand and in ways that are evolving and growing uh, for the better and you know uh, I spend a lot of time, you know, uh, you know, I, I, I read the news on the regular, I'm plugged into you know, world of events, and it's hard to have, but um, you know, uh, the notion uh that people are um, you know, remaking Um, their own traditions that they’re continuing to celebrate something that um has been a part of their ritual lives for um generations upon generations and they are continuing to ennoble that and it's something that we can you know celebrate them I celebrate with them together um you know it is profound and meaningful and and we're celebrating for me so uh cheers to you all uh alone together you.