​The story of Viișoara Winery

Between the Danube and the sea, the sun and the sea breeze pamper and caress the vineyards like nowhere else. The village of the living is a place where Romanians, Turks, Tatars live equally, in peace and good understanding…

That’s how it’s always been…

When I was young, I would often talk to the elders of the village. They would tell me about the vineyard, about the wine, about how in order to achieve the best results, one should respect this noble profession. I gradually came up with the idea of rewarding them, of avenging them, of making the misery of the vineyard being cut down a thing of the past. So I decided to replant the vineyard in Viişoara and make a winery here.
Starting from this idea, I came to replant almost 330 hectares of vineyard. This vineyard surrounds the Caceamac Valley, known to the villagers under the same name even today.”
Gheorghe Albu, founder of Viisoara Winery

The story of Viișoara village

The village is located on DN 3, 40 km away from Constanţa, and belongs administratively to the Cobadin commune. It is a village where all Romanians, Turks and Tatars live in peace and good understanding. That is how it always has been…

The Processing and the Winemakers

On its premises there are white wine vinificators, red wine vinificators, storage tanks plus other double insulated vinificators (for tartar stability), barrels, and a tasting room.

The Treasure – The Winery, the Vineyard and the Wine

Nu e de ajuns sa ai o idee pentru a realiza ceea ce ți-ai propus.
Este nevoie și de o strategie bine pusă la punct pentru a ajunge să replantezi atâta vița de vie și pentru a construi o Crama.

The village is located on DN 3, 40 km away from Constanţa, and belongs administratively to the Cobadin commune. It is a village where all Romanians, Turks and Tatars live in peace and good understanding. That is how it always has been.

Viişoara was given its name in 1926. Until then, it was called Caceamac, a name that in Turkish holds two different meanings, according to different dialects. Thus, caceaman means either „grain food” or „the beautiful valley”, and if you ask the locals, almost every one of them will tell you that the second translation is the most accurate.

The village was first located in the Caceamac Valley,

about 2 km northwest of the current hearth of Viişoara. The name of Caceamac originates from the times when Dobrudja was under Ottoman rule.

After the First World War, the Romanian state ordered the rehabilitation of the roads throughout the entire country, but especially of those in Dobrudja that was devastated and still carrying the bloody traces of the war’s violence.

Along with this rehabilitation, the Roman road starting from the Tomis fortress (now Constanţa) and leading to Tropaeum Traiani (Adamclisi) was also restored. The new road forced the villagers of Caceamac to move 2 km to the east, on both sides of it. For a while, the village was also known as „The Village Between the Vineyards”, hence its new name, „Viişoara”, describing the first activity of the villagers, the cultivation of vine.

When I was young, I would often talk to the elders of the village. They would tell me about the vineyard, about the wine, about how in order to achieve the best results, one should respect this noble profession. I gradually came up with the idea of rewarding them, of avenging them, of making the misery of the vineyard being cut down a thing of the past. So I decided to replant the vineyard in Viişoara and make a winery here.
Starting from this idea, I came to replant almost 330 hectares of vineyard. This vineyard surrounds the Caceamac Valley, known to the villagers under the same name even today.

This idea became a reality and Viişoara Winery is today one of the most modern in Romania, despite having just one year of existence. In less than one year, Viişoara Winery has come to compete as an equal with the major national and international brands. It has won not less than 19 medals, including 7 gold medals and 12 silver medals at the “International Wine Contest Bucharest (IWCB) – 2017”, that took place in the capital city between the 25th and 28th of May. A special merit goes to the team led by the most renowned oenologist, Nicolae Laurenţiu Itu.

These medals, as well as those that will certainly come in the future, represent our way of rewarding the ancestors of Viişoara, of bringing them a last proof of gratitude. These elders are long gone now, but I know that they had one last and precious desire: that the village of Viişoara would return to what it once was: the Village among the Living…

Gheorghe Albu consulted many well-known specialists in the field, such as Nicu Itu and others. He then contacted a rootstock nursery in France: Morisson Couderc – an institution with over 130 years seniority in the field. Planting material that corresponds exactly to the qualities of the wine varieties was ordered almost 4 years prior.

The varieties grown with material brought in from France are white and red.

White varieties include: Fetească Albă, Fetească Regală, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Muscat Ottonel, Tămâioasă Românească, Italian Riesling whereas red wine varieties include Pinot Noir, Fetească Neagră, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Rosé wines wrap the varieties pallete up. It is very important to know that the rosé is not made from a mixture of white and red wine, but by immediate processing of red grapes, thus obtaining, in just 3 to 4 hours, a pale rosé colour not unlike the onion skin.

Viişoara’s rosé is already highly demanded, being requested by young people and preferred by many women.

We offer virtually every type of wine and this is a characteristic of Viişoara Winery. Dry, semi-dry and semi-sweet white wines, dry and semi-dry red wines, rosé wines… It is a novel thing, having all these varieties allows us to make the whole range of wines, covering all tastes and requirements of the consumer.

The vineyards of Viişoara are all young and replanted.

Particular attention is paid to the technology of vineyard maintenance, in the sense that the unit has specialists who permanently check the evolution in the vegetation of the vineyard. Thus, if it is found that the vine is in danger of being affected by disease, the specialists intervene manually, in the first phase.

At Viişoara, vineyard picking is only done manually,

when the grapes gather enough sugar depending on variety. Added sugar or other sweeteners are not used in the winery, only the sugar naturally present in the grapes.

And there is another very interesting thing happening at Viişoara Winery: the processed grapes come exclusively from the personal crop and not from other plantations whose exploiting methods or the possibility of them being affected by pesticides are not known.

We only process grapes from our own harvest because we know the technology and the way the vine was maintained. We pay special attention to the grapes because a good wine starts in the vineyard and in the winery the good grape is only processed. Our interest is in the grape being of the highest quality.

And there are two more very important aspects regarding the good grapes of Viişoara. The lands and the microclimate… The vineyards are exhibition grounds, most of them being on a slope and thus having a very good sun exposure. These grapes are practically caressed by the sun’s rays, thus becoming grapes of the highest quality.

On its premises there are white wine vinificators, red wine vinificators, storage tanks plus other double insulated vinificators (for tartar stability), barrels, and a tasting room.

Each individual tank is connected through a valve to a central panel, which allows the setting of a certain temperature suitable for the wine variety in each fermentation barrel.

White wine technology

The grapes brought in from vineyards have a high temperature which varies depending on the amount of sunlight in that day. After passing through a destemmer, the grapes go through a large industrial cooler where their temperature drops to 10-12 degrees. This is a mandatory process because pressing them with no prior cooling could lead to undesirable fermentations and loss of individual flavors specific to each variety during the 2-3 hour pressing cycle. Therefore, grape cooling is extremely important and at Viişoara Winery it is a must.

Once cooled, the grapes go through the press with temperatures of up to 10-12 degrees.

In the fermentation process, we count a great deal on temperature. This is why white wine vinificators have two oversized cooling or heating jackets which allow us to quickly set the temperature inside depending on the technology for each variety. “This is how we speed up or slow down the wine fermentation process, while trying to use as fewer substance additions as possible.

The red wine vinificators

belong to the latest generation. The pistons once used to periodically immerse the mass of red grapes were eliminated. Those pistons were aggressive and they would damage the grape skin, further damaging the quality of the resulting wine seeing as how the quality of wine virtually lies in the integrity of the skin. That is where the best tannin and the best substances of colour and flavour are found…

The harsh pistons are just a distant memory now. Today, wine technology is completely different as well. The grapes now come from the field at a high temperature and they are destemmed. They no longer go through the cooling process or the press, instead they are sucked in and inserted into the red wine vinificators which are provided with a heating jacket.

In the fermentation process of the red wine, the temperature needs to be high, but not excessively high and must always be kept under control in order to not compromise the wine. This is why these vinificators also have a cooling jacket, in order to maintain the optimum temperature for each type of wine.

We replaced those pistons in order to avoid aggression towards the wine and the grape. Wine is very sensitive, you have to treat it like you would a woman, you have to be gentle and it will give you gentleness in return.

An inner axis which has a device called “Grandpa’s Hand” tied to it was attached to the red wine vinificator in order to avoid aggression. “Grandpa’s Hand” imitates what our grandparents used to do long ago, at home, when they would regularly go to the red grape vat to mix, more accurately to caress, the content.

That way, through this gentle mixing, the integrity of the skin is maintained. If the skin keeps its integrity, a wine of the highest quality will be obtained because that is where the tannin and the substances of colour and flavour are.

The basins in the winery – safety and occupational safety rules

The basins in the winery also comply with safety and work security regulations, in the sense that they are not attached, fixed in concrete, but are placed freely on the platform.

That’s why they have more support legs and their bottom is concave. Thus, in the event of an earthquake, the danger of accidents is avoided, because this type of pool is created for the effect of the Mitica Hoop, through which they always remain standing.

In this way, through this gentle mixing, the integrity of the skins is maintained. If they remain intact, the wine will be of the best quality, because that is where the tannin and the substances of color and flavor are.

Red wine – food

It is not to be forgotten that red wine is considered to be an aliment, ranking first among the cancer-fighting foods. Moderate consumption of red wine can prevent colon cancer, prostate affections, and a glass of red wine per day regulates high blood pressure. Meanwhile, a Merlot from Viişoara Winery was dubbed Women’s Discreet Paramour by specialists.

Another secret of the Viişoara wine is the “Everything Full” principle. When a certain amount of wine is taken out of a tank, normally an empty space remains. Then the inert gas is added which reacts with the wine, thus avoiding oxidation. We do not do that.

We apply the Everything Full principle: we put the wine into bottles without that inert gas content. We always fill the different capacity tanks which makes the use of the inert gas unnecessary. The Everything Full principle is a healthy one, and thus our wine does not cause indigestion.

The Barrels

There is a story that says the great Napoleon practically invented the unit of measure, the container in itself. According to the legend, the Emperor of France requested that a type of barrel be created (for war preys) that could be divided “drop by drop” into bottles of 0.75.

The secret of the Viişoara barrel

is the way the oak wood is fried, by hot air convection as opposed to direct flame. That is why the same wine type, held into 7 different types of barrels, ends up having different qualities and satisfying different tastes.

Storage and Aging Cellar and the Bottling Line

The cellar of Viişoara has a capacity of 1 million bottles, and the atmosphere in this precinct is a controlled one. The wine is kept in box pallets that haven’t yet been labeled. The wine is preserved here and particularly the red one is aged for 3, 4 or even 5 years.

Viişoara Winery has a bottling line for bottles of different sizes, ranging from 187 milliliters to 1.5 liters bottles. The bottling line is fully automated and the sterile bottling guarantees a long-term storage of the wine.