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Exploring My Neighbor’s Vineyards and Getting to Know Fetească Neagră

 

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While most of my focus is in Turkish wines, it’s nice to sometimes walk in the vineyards of our neighbors. Metaphorically speaking of course. I’ve yet to visit Romania at all let alone its vineyards. But that’s one of the great things about wine. Opening a bottle is like opening a magic door through which you can step and discover new worlds. Maybe you’ve never been to that region, or even that country, but wine lets you taste what you cannot see. 

For me, one of those recent journeys too me to Romania and to the discovery of one of the country’s native grapes, Fetească Neagră.

Fetească Neagră

Fetească Neagră, which means “black maiden” is one of the grapes shared between Romania and Moldova. Its origin is the old principality of Moldavia. As the name indicates, Moldavia was made up largely of what is now the Republic of Moldova, but also included the eastern part of Romania and a little bit of Ukraine. Under the previous Soviet era, the grape largely disappeared from Moldova. Its continued cultivation was down to Romania until it was allowed to regain popularity in Moldova. 

A late-ripening variety, Fetească Neagră is cold and drought resistant. Thick skin provide an extra layer of protection and lead to deeply pigmented wines. Once commonly blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, it’s more and more common now to see it as a varietal wine produced dry, semi-dry, or sweet.

I acquired two varietal wines from a friend who visited Romania. Unbeknownst to me, until I went to open a bottle, one was a semi-dry, which presented a fun opportunity to compare the styles. But first, the DOC.  

Dealu Mare DOC

Unlike Turkey, Romania has an appellation system with eight different regions. Both of the wines I got came from Dealu Mare, the most concentrated of the DOCs. Dealu Mare sits in the southern part of the country in Prahova and Buzău counties. Dealu Mare means “big hill”, an appropriate name for a region that runs along the southern Carpathian Hills! The region stretches for 65 kilometers but is narrow at just three to 12 kilometers.

The vineyards here lie between 130 and 550 meters and receive protection from harsh winter winds by the hills and forests higher in the Carpathians. Reddish brown soils rich in iron and with chalky deposits, plentiful rainfall, and hot summers with mild, dry autumns all contribute towards making vine growing here so successful. 

Successful and long-storied. While the first written records available date from “only” the 14th and 15th centuries, archeological finds date the presence of the vines here to ancient times.

White wines made here tend to have high levels of extract with excellent structure and medium acidity. While aromatic varieties Tămâioasă Românească and Muscat Ottonel have found particular favor in this region, they’re far from the only white grapes. Busuioaca de Bohotin, Fetească Albă, Fetească Regală, Riesling Italico, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon Blanc, and Chardonnay abound.

On the other end of the spectrum, red wines offer a smooth structure, full body, and often see oak ageing. Among the red grape varieties grown in Dealu Mare are: Burgund Mare, Fetească Neagră, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, and Zweigelt.

1000 de Chipuri Fetească Neagră Sec, 2020

Located just north of the Bulgaria-Romania border and a bit west of the Black Sea is 1000 de Chipuri. The name means 1000 faces and pays homage to the people who work in wine. For them, wine is more than chateaux, domains, and famous labels. It’s the faces of people, whether we know them or not, who do not want to produce millions of bottles but produce happiness on the faces of a few people.

1000 de Chipuri began in 2007 with the preparation and planting of the winery’s Fințeşti-Naeni vineyard in Romania’s Dealu Mare wine region. The soils here are largely Sarmatian limestones, clays, sandstones, and dacitic tuffs, along with deposits of fine sand alternating with gravel and sit at about 350 meters above sea level.

The winery has 63 hectares today, planted to a mix of native and international grapes including: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Shiraz (Syrah), Cabernet Franc, Fetească Neagră, Fetească Albă, Chardonnay, Italian Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, and Romanian Tâmiaosă.

Fetească Neagră really delivers on that “deeply pigmented” promise! The wine poured almost black with aromas just as dark. Fruity, spicy, and a bit oaky with lashings of blackberry patch, plum, black cherries, and forest spice. Big, full-bodied, and lush with mouth-filling flavors of black pepper over blackberries and black cherries. A little hot (15.5% ABV) but not offensively so, with a long finish.

Gramofon Wine Fetească Regalo Demi-Sec, 2020

Gramofon Wine was founded in 2015 by former musician Marcel Pascu. Located just outside the town Urlati in the Dealu Mare DOC, the winery cultivates 25 hectares, planted since 2009, of international and native grapes such as Fetească Neagră, and Fetească Regalo. 

Big red fruits on the nose with a mash up of strawberry, red plum, and cherry covered by a drizzle of currant syrup. The aromas followed through on the palate along with some light tannins carrying the flavors to a medium finish. Full-bodied with 15.2% ABV. I could not find any winemaking notes for this so I don’t have information about how much residual sugar the wine contains. The residual sugar (RS) was noticeable, so my guess is +/- 15 grams per liter. Acidity was decent but, in my opinion, needed to be a little higher to carry the RS. As it was, the wine was pleasant, but wanted food. 

I don’t have many reviews up (yet!) but check out the rest of my Romanian wine reviews if you’re also interested in exploring someone else’s vineyards.