Article of Jo Burzynska, published in the August edition of the British magazine “Drinks Buyer Europe”

In his intention to write the book “How I played tennis with Moldovans”, Tonny Hox, the author, goes to a funny trip around Moldova with the aim to find a secret soccer team and to beat them at tennis. In his book Hox draws a less attractive portrait of the nation. He finds the country “terribly joyless” and the people were “gloomy”. However, Moldova tries to create a positive image in the area ( in which it has much more experience then soccer and tennis) – wine-making.

Moldova is a small country, bordering with Romania on west and Ukraine on south and east. It is worth mentioning that it is positioned at the latitude of 470, which is close to the latitude of Burgundy.

The traditions of winemaking have over 5000 years, some of which were not peaceful at all. Now the wine makers of the country hope and expect for a new golden age, as they are trying to enter all markets of the world.

In the recent history the winemaking industry is created after the Russian occupation in 1813. In this period Tsar Alexander invited the French wine-makers to Moldova and so the planting of the French sorts had started.

The World Wars caused serious damages to the Moldavian winemaking industry and many of the vineyards were destroyed. But it was rebuilt in the communist era within the state enterprise Moldpvinprom back in 1950s and 1960s, then 150.000. hectare of vineyards were planted. After it the total surface of vines increased to 220.000 hectare. These new vineyards were created according to the French model of management by a pro-French manager. But many of them were destroyed during the anti-alcoholic campaign of Gorbachev.

Moldova obtained its independence in 1991, but had a difficult period of transition from a communist state to a market economy. The process of privatization was slow and destructive. All the enterprises, including the ones of viticulture, were ruined and were basically sold by pieces. Only now many of the viticulturists started to associate in order to cultivate together a couple of hundreds of hectare.

The lack of investments during this time is evident. Many wine factories are now massively collapsing monuments of the soviet wine-making industry. You’ll find on their territory stained remains of the old equipment.

Just by a superficial look it;s easy to describe Moldova as Tonny Hox did. However, there is a perspective under this sober appearance, and this  attracted the foreign winemakers at the beginning of 1990s. The wine-maker from Southcorp, Mr. John Duval comments: “I believe that Moldova has a potential. The vineyards have a number of classic varieties traditional for the region and all these in the conditions of a unconsiderable financing helped to have a low productivity”.

The real perspectives of Moldova are in the 105.000 hectare of vineyards that were planted on its hills. Viticulture seems to be a more developed domain then winemaking, and the lack of funds in this area means a limited use of chemicals. The cheap and numerous labor force in agriculture means a quantity of people sufficient for taking care of the vineyards.

The high potential chernozem areas constitute about 80% of the soil of the country. Due to this fact it became a natural region of agricultural production, which is the main branch of economy.

Moldova has a continental climate with short and relatively mild winters and long hot and humid summer seasons. The average temperature in July varies between 19,5^oС and 22^oС, and in January – from –3^oС to –5^oС. The average yearly quantity of precipitations is moderate: from 405 mm at south-west up to 550 mm in the north.

The rate between the white and the black wine vine varieties is 70/30. The basic varieties are western, such as Aligote, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, as well as some local varieties like Feteasca. The most popular red varieties are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir. The vine is usually led to grow in the upper part, and the grapes are collected by hand, with relatively low yields.

Those who never heard about the Moldovan wines will be surprised to find out that Moldova is now the ninth in the in the charter of the states exporting wines according to the amount of exported wines. It exports 90% of its products, 80% of which are shpped to the Russian market. Moldova is trying to change this market dependence: during the last three years there was performed a campaign of entering the new markets of the Western Europe and America. But usually the quality of Moldovan wines is much lower then the one requested for these markets. The improvement of the quality of the products is very important for the success of Moldova.

The low production and hygiene standards are evident at some factories. And despite the affirmations about the climate controle and even of the “implementation of secret technologies” there’s a lack of know how used in the majority of the Moldovan wines. The wines are often showing a high acidity, lack of fruits, high level of sulfur, oxidation.

Considerable investments are needed in order to improve the quality of wines produced by an industry that is mostly collapsing.

“At this moment we don’t have sufficient funds to invest in production”, – confesses Nicolae Gurgunov, from cooperative Corten. But Corten is one of the wine factories of the country that are managed in the best way, now enjoying the benefits of collaboration with “Acorex” company, one of the few companies from Moldova that has ability to invest in the wine industry.

The wine factory from Taraclia succeeded in obtaining a loan for building a new bottling facility, but this project is not accomplished yet because the loans were stopped due to the economical crisis in Russia. The main focus areas of this wine factory are viticulture and e vineyards. It has a large vine nursery producing 70 different clones from France.

There is a high demand for the young vine and Taraclia sold all its stocks this year. But the executive director Frangu Gheorhge says that it still doesn’t bring enough profit that would make possible to invest in production. In search for money for planting another 400 hectare of vineyards so necessary for the wine factory, Gheorghe as well as the agents of other Moldovan companies is trying to find investors in the USA.

The co-owner of Doina-Vin, Mr. Feodosii Bors is also seeking for partners. After the acquisition of the wine factory and latter of a bottling line, he intends to buy another 500 hectares of land and to invest in the wine factory. “But this would be a problem because the Moldovan banks are giving loans with an interest of 24%-25%” he said.

The Government recently proposed to introduce a tax of 5% on the entire export of wines in order to be able to reinvest in vineyards. But the most progressive companies are against this idea, as they prefer to decide on their own where to spend their money. But if Moldova intends to become high quality producer then the money should be spent on the improvement of the wine-making technology.

The Australian wine-making giant “Southcorp” opened its representative in Moldova in 1990s, in the person of the “flying wine-maker” Hue Rayman at the Hincesti cooperative. Mike Paul, the agent of “Southcorp”, actively participating in this project, explains the causes.

“We wanted to experiment in wine-making outside Australia and we considered the project to have a low risk. The project included the installment from of a bottling line, for what we’ve got  500.000 boxes of wine. There were classic varieties and we thought that we will be able to make good wine and to sell it at a price of 3,99 Pounds, but the average price of the eastern-European wines was much lower. We also planed to produce high quality wines.

But despite the company managed to produce very good wines, according to Paul, “Southcorp” discovered that it selling it at the projected price would be impossible.  In addition, the cultural differences were creating difficulties in quality control and as a result some shipment problems occurred.

Paul considers this experience to be a “very precious one”, and now in the position of director of the British company Western Wines, he says that he wouldn’t go back to it.

“Eastern Europe seems to have conquered the sector of inexpensive wines. Even if we would make wines better then our competitors, which is very difficult, it would be callenging to sell it for a price that is higher then the market price”. He added that: “It is necessary to have some companies to participate in competition. We need not only vineyards, but also cooperation”.

“Acorex Wine Holding” – is one of the few private companies that is able to finance quality improvement measures. The General Manager of thecompany Mr. Serghei Boret said that the company already invested 16 million US Dollars mainly of its own capital, and is planning further investments plus loans from the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. “Аcorex” is one of the leading companies by its quality wines in Moldova.

In 1993, after exporting the products of other Moldovan wine factories to Russia for some years, “Аcorex” opened its own wine-making enterprise – “Cricova-Аcorex”. Today it includes an ultra modern wine factory with a capacity of 55.000 gl in the village of Cricova, which is close to the capital city – Chisinau. At the factory are blendied, stored, and bottled about 8 million bottles per year.

The company signed partnership agreements with some cooperatives marketing grapes. In these cooperatives the wines are produced under the supervision of the Italian wine-making consultants. It is planned to start the exploitation of the new wine factory in the next years.

Although the cooperatives that “Аcorex” collaborates with are the best in the country, their wine-makers are still using old equipment, due to the fact that modern technologies are slowly implemented in Moldova. However, some of the old equipment is very efficient. Widely spread are enamel tanks which if modified are able to use climate control.

Well balanced wines with fruit fragrance that started to be produced at “Аcorex”, are pointing to the potential of the country in general, provided  new technologies will be implemented.

One of the most interesting things about these wines is that they are produced according to organic methodology, which gives a chance to Moldovan wine industry, which during all the independence period didn’t use any chemicals. The Swiss company SGS (which performs organic certification) sees a great potential for the organic certification of Moldovan products, and it initiated with the Moldavian Government a program of organic development.

“Cricova-Аcorex” recently has started the organic serries called “Terra Verde”, with an amount of 60.000 boxes. The wines of this series are sold for a price from 1,30 up to 1,50 Dollars ex-cellars, this is a lower price then the one for the organic wines produced in other countries, so this series can fill a market niche.

“Cricova-Аcorex” hopes that the organic approach will help Moldova to enter the markets with higher prices then the ones that are for the eastern-European wines. For Dumitru Munteanu, Marketing Director of “Cricova-Аcorex”, it is very important. He mentions that “when you found out about the lowest price segment, it is very difficult to go beyond it”. He also added: “The organic production will facilitate this process because people are more interested in status then the place of origin of the wine”.

Another private company that started producing these prospective wines is “Dionysos Mereni”, which invested in vineyards and equipment capital that came from America. The main wine-maker of this enterprise used to work in France and America. He uses foreign experts as assistants.

3 millions of bottles are basically exported to Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union, but the company started to enter the western markets. Its the highest potential series is Karlevana, sold at a price of 1,20 and 1,35 Dollars ex-cellars. It was started in 2000 within the program “that had the aim to show the world that Moldova has a great potential in the production of high quality wines”, – this is the opinion of the sales manager of “Dionysos-Mereni” Inna Gafiiciuc.

The transportation was one of the basic problems of “Southcorp”, but “Cricova-Аcorex” and  “Dionisos – Mereni” think that there are no difficulties with that. Mr. Munteanu said that “Cricova-Аcorex” is already exporting its products to such countries as Canada, USA, and that the logistics and sales department assures the shipments and it perfectly works.

Like the Moldovan soccer team, which is now in the lowest half of the world rating of the soccer league – 103 place, the wine industry of the country has to go through a lot of training before participating at the world championships. Just a few companies are producing wines that are fulfilling the requirements of the world market, but anyway Moldova is in the game and who knows – there might be appear more brilliant players.