A Visit to Moldova - Photo Album December 1998

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Cricova Winery

The Cricova Winery is almost entirely underground. It was started in the 14th century, then expanded more and more throughout the years.

Wine is what Moldova's known for: the warm summers and mild winters are great for growing many kinds of grapes. Certainly wine making's been around there for a very long time--you can bet the Romans, who called the Moldova area "Dacia", drank their fair share of the local vintages!

On the road to Cricova, you pass miles and miles of vineyards.

You then drop off down into a river valley...

And then you're there! Here, Chris and I are standing in front of the main entrance. Almost all of the winery is underground, in limestone caverns about 250 feet (80m) below ground. The air is nice and cool down there, about 10 -12C, making it perfect for storing wine.

You drive in for a while (I thought it was about a kilometer), down passageways like this. There's over 50km of passageways that are used for wine production and storage, many of them named after wine varietals like "Str. Chardonnay" and "Str. Pinot Grigio".

One of the first stops on the trip is the Cricova national wine repository.

That's where we met our tour guide, Tatiana (in the pink sweater). She took us around, doing a very good job explaining the various wines kept in storage there. Even though she spoke in Romanian, it was pretty easy to understand most of what she said. Those five years of high school Spanish, and living in California where Spanish is spoken all over, do help!

Many of the wines in storage are from wine competitions held throughout Europe. The oldest bottle dates from 1902. Pre-war, most of the bottles are from western Europe; after 1940 or so, most bottles come from the states of the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. From 1990, the bottles are once again from everywhere!

In the mid 1950's, the winery was extensively remodeled with tasting rooms, conference rooms, and meeting halls. Judith spotted this globe hanging on the wall in one of the rooms and apparently felt the urge to tickle the Ivory Coast of Africa...

There was also this really cool room, the Neptune Room. Notice the anchor dropping out of the ceiling? You can pretend you're 20,000 leagues under the sea! After visiting this room, Chris remarked, "I've never felt so far away from home as I do now. This is way cool." I felt it looked like a Star Trek set.

Here I am with the bounty of the sea.

Cricova makes lots of different wines. Here, in front of this mysterious Zodiac art, are all their products.

We adjourned and got down to sampling wine. Here, Tatiana pours me a big glass of a Cricova specialty, red champagne (oops... sparkling wine). It wasn't just any sampling: five bottles for the four of us, plus breads, meats, and cheeses. It was really great. I especially liked the red champagne; I've never had anything like it.

And Kim and Judith celebrate!

Next Page: Off to the monastery