Calusari, Pinot Noir, Viile Timisului, Romania, 2024

Producer Profile

Back in 1988, three families decided to invest in a winery in Romania, starting with 650ha of slightly unloved vineyards and a rusty, formerly state-owned winery. Today, Englishman Philip Cox and his Romanian wife Elvira have turned the Cramele Recas Estate into the most successful winery in Romania.

Recas are now recognized globally for their impressive scale and breadth of fascinating wines, including natural and orange wines made from organic grapes. Despite the increase in scale, the emphasis remains on making quality wines that over-deliver – a magic formula that has recently seen sales boom. The vineyards are a combination of old vines and more recent plantings, and the winery has seen significant investment in state of the art facilities. Recas are in every way a modern, dynamic winery whose open-minded approach and quality sets them apart… a winery you can’t ignore.

Viticulture

100% estate grown gapes from the Uberland Hill vineyard. Conventional new world viticulture and meticulous canopy management. Grown on a variety of soils, from cracking clay to limestone rich loam. All vineyards are non-irrigated. Trained to vertical shoot postioned trellis with 2 to 4 canes per vine with replacement spurs. Intervine soil management by cultivation. Yields from 5 to 15 tonnes per hectare.

Winemaking

25% of the grapes were transferred directly into 1000 kg bins without being destemmed then sealed and put through a carbonic maceration and fermentation for 10 days in order to produce a strawberry, fruity part of the blend. The remaining 75% was destemmed, lightly crushed and then macerated and fermented normally at 25°C in stainless steel automated fermenters. Both wines where then separately pressed and the noncarbonic maceration wine was lightly oaked for 2 months with French oak before blending.

Tasting Note

Gorgeous flavours, almost syrupy in its concentration. Dark, rich and potent, with layers of black cherry, raspberry and cinnamon. Deep, with pretty fruit cake and spicy aromatics. A lovely long and lingering finish.

Food Matching

Semi hard cheeses, salmon, tuna, pork dishes made in the oven, duck, turkey in red sauce.