World's largest wine cellar and Europe's largest wine collection

Milestii Mici is a wine factory and wine collection of Moldova situated 20 km south of Chisinau near a village with a similar name. Its underground wine city in limestone is stretching for 250 km of which 120 km are currently in use. Milestii Mici cellar complex is recognized to be the largest in the world. Tunnel streets "Cabernet", "Shardonait", "Feteasca", "Sauvignon" etc. form a transport web of the wine city. One need a car to drive from one part of the winery to the other and it's not rare to see its employees traveling from one workshop to another by bicycle.

It's chilly and dark in the cellar. Being situated deep under the ground (40-85 meters deep) the temperature inside the lime galleries stay constant all year around (at 12 - 14 C and the humidity of 85 - 95%) being ideal for storage and preserving of its wines. Don't forget to take a warm jacket when you come on a tour even if it's plus 40 Centigrade outside. It's always cool and chilly underground!!!

The "Golden Collection" of Milestii Mici holds nearly 2 million bottles and was recently recognized as Europe's largest wine collection by Guinness World Records. More than 70% of the stored wines are red, 20% are white and about 10% are dessert ones. The most valuable items of this collection, worth EURO480 a bottle, were produced in 1973-74; they are now exported only to Japan. The wines stored here are made from crops of various years, beginning with 1969: "Pinot", "Traminer", "Muscat", "Riesling", "Feteasca", "Dnestrovscoie", "Milestscoie", "Codru", "Negru de Purcari", "Trandafirul Moldovei", "Auriu", "Cahor-Ciumai", and others. All these wines are made according to the old Moldavian traditions; you can fell the sunshine and the power of the earth in every drop of it.

During the tour the guide will tell you about the history of Milestii Mici and the wine industry of Moldova, its past and present, take you through the wine collection showing the rare samples and explain how to store the bottles correctly to keep its original flavour and bouquet untouched, take your through the collection of champagne and tell you the secrets of its production and finally taking you to the festive part of the winery, tasting rooms.

The tour ends with tasting of wines accompanied by snacks or a traditional Moldovan lunch. Tasting rooms are well decorated in a traditional Moldovan style. Warm color of oak tables, chairs and sculptures combined with cold stone walls of the rooms form an authentic feeling of a Moldovan wine cellar. Moldovan traditional band of "Lautari" will perform Moldovan folk songs, as well as well known international plays on violin and accordion while you are tasting red and white wines from the local collection. Your guide will be introducing each bottle of wine telling the favors that you should taste with each kind of wine. After the "theoretical" part will be let to relax and enjoy the wine, food and music!!!

There is a company shop on the territory of the wine complex and those of you who didn't get some bottles of wine as a souvenir, can purchase more bottles of favorite wine in this shop.

The most popular tours at Milestii Mici are:

„Butoias” : tasting of ordinary wines from the barrel with appetizer (dried fruits, kernel, biscuits). Duration ~ 1,50 h

„Express” : tasting of 3 types of wine (1 ordinary wines, 1 high quality wines, 1 sparkling wine) with meal (appetizer „Doina”, assortment of salami, chicken barbecue with pineaple, french fries, fruits) + 1 bottle of white ordinary wine and 1 bottle of red high quality wine as a souvenir. Duration ~ 2 h

„Classic” : tasting of 7 wines (2 high quality wines, 4 collection wines, 1 sparkling wine) with meal (appetizer „Doina”, salami assortment, pie assortment, chicken fillet, mash potatoes, fruits) + 1 bottle of white high quality wine and 1 bottle of white sparkling wine as a souvenir. 

Duration : ~ 2 h

„National” : tasting of 7 wines, (2 high quality wines, 4 collection wines, 1 sparkling wine) with meal (baked vegetables,  assortment of fresh vegetables, cheese, assortment of meat, pickles, "mamaliga"  with pork casserole, "galusi", fruits, plums with nut) + 1 bottle of stored in collection wine and 1 bottle of white sparkling wine as a souvenir. Duration: ~ 2.30 h

Our guests' tips & feedback:

"Trip to Milestii Mici was really quite stunning. Well worth the money. Only one tip to visitors like us is for them to remember that you won’t be able to carry wine in hand luggage. We had to move our bottles into our main case at the airport. Luckily they survived back to the UK intact."

"The tour we went on to Milestii Mici was both interesting and fun"

"The Milestii Mici wine tour was fantastic, an awsome place, with nice wine tasting and food afterwards. "

source: marisha.net

Publicat de Unknown 09:58

Chateau Vartely - the winery tradition and culture

The company  "Chateau Vartely" LTD is the the producer of premium class wine from the best European grape variety’s, grown Southern and Central regions of the country. 

"Chateau" in the contemporary l vocabulary of French wine makers means- a territory, where the owner perform the whole cycle of wine making – from the growth of the grapes, until the bottling.Only this way, consider the French, the quality of the product can be guaranteed, by producing a limited amount.

  

"Vartely" Accoding to the encyclopedia ("Енчиклопедия Советикэ Молдовеняскэ, 1975 year., part.5."), the name od one of the oldest towns in Moldova- Orhei,  originates from the Hungarian word "Var". "Vartely" - "town", "castle", the root of the word was brought to Moldova by the valahians that came here from the Western Carpathians.

"Chateau Vartely" –is a young but ambitious in the good meaning of the word wine making company, placed directly in the orhean region, where up to now live and become a reality the rich national traditions of cultivation and producing of the  "beverage of the Gods" - wine.

The classic European grape varieties used in the wine making determine the range:Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Traminer, Feteasca.

In the last four years the Chateau Vartely wines, have obtained a considerable amount of esteeemers all over the world. This fact is proved by the big amount of exported product to such countries such as: U.S.A., France, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, China, Romania, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Each development occupies a considerable period of time.The Chateau Vartely company, has three strategic directions of development: great quality, special treatment towards the clients and partners, maintaining and developing the traditions.

The "Chateau Vartely" LTD, entered the market not only by offering the best of what the wine makers of the republic have been producing for ages, but also placing the bet on the quality of the natural product in the first place.

For those who come to Moldova to rest and get to know local customs and traditions, there is Resort Chateau Vartely, which is situated on the hill Orhei, which opens a panorama of the city's picturesque river valley Orhei and malice.  Chateau Vartely company will receive with hospitality each visitor in the household of wine, making  the wine tasting a real feast for those who have tried at least for a time the divine wines. Guests can be accommodated in one of the eight luxurious rooms and four VIP suites. From its windows Tourist Complex Chateau Vartely opens a magnificent panorama of the city and the beautiful valleys bathed by the morning sun.

source: informator.md

Publicat de Unknown 07:55

Cricova - The Treasure of Moldova

Whether you are a local or a tourist, it is a fact that you will be impressed by the most imposing und largest underground wine cellar of the world – Cricova! So were we, a small family, willing to discover the most famous treasure of the country. The two hours car trip 60 metres underground, along the wine labyrinths and the guide’s exciting stories about the history and development of the cellar brought us the biggest satisfaction.

Cricova wine cellar, located in the central part of Moldova, in the core of Codru and the town with the same name, just 15 km north of the capital city Chisinau, has its beginning in the 15^th century. The mines of Cricova have been used for hundreds of years to dig out, manually, limestone for building the city of Chisinau and its surrounding towns. After the Second World War, the academic Petru Ungureanu came with the brilliant idea and the first experiences of using the 200 km long tunnels as a wine storage. In present 65 km of the roadways are converted into a huge subterranean wine cellar with the most favourable temperature (about +10-12 °C) and ideal humidity throughout the year for the storage of millions of bottles of wine, 1.2 millions of which represent rare wine.

The underground wine city is an amazing labyrinth of subterranean streets, each of which bares the names of the variety of grapes. Would you like to have a ride on the Sauvignon, Cabernet, Aligote or Chardonnay streets? Or probably you want to make a stop on the Champagne Boulevard and learn its own three hundred years old story? Don’t hesitate to make some pictures, too! You will be impressed by the number of wooden barrels, which have the capacity of storage over 40 millions litres of wine.

Becherovka made in 1902

But the most magnificent part of Cricova’s wine city is definitely the immense gallery with its limestone caves, used to store an exceptional wine collection with old and rare wines, giving a unique value to this collection. The two most precious and unique exhibits are one of the 400 bottles of "Jerusalem of Easter" wine, produced as a single badge in 1402 as well as the "Jan Becker" liqueur, produced in the same year, containing unknown ingredients kept secret forever. More than 150 old renowned Europeans brands such as Bourgogne, Mosel, Rein, Tokay, etc., bottled in the first half on the twentieth century do not only represent the gallery’s thesaurus, but also the treasure of Moldova in general. Theoretically, you could take home a bottle of wine from this collection, but only if you would be able to pay about sixty thousands dollars for it. Well, there are also some cheaper samples, for which you could pay the half.

Even the noblest tastes can be satisfied by Cricova’s wine cellar. Do you prefer strong wine brands from Africa, central Asia, the Near East, classical Portuguese collection and rare wine of Georgia, Armenia and Crimea or noble wines of domestic production? You will find everything there! So did the ex-president of Russia Mr. Putin, who after celebrating his 50^th birthday in Cricova’s wine cellar bought a notable wine collection and keeps it in the underground gallery. If you want your wine collection to be a part of the gallery, just rent a limestone cave and your name can extend the list of more than 650 names.

Yuri Gagarin would fly to moon for Cricova

Cricova is not only about a subterranean car trip it is also wine tasting and delicious dinner in the charming wine tasting halls. One of them shows on its ceiling the era when present Moldova was under sea. Be prepared to enjoy a couple of different wine varieties and make your own appreciations. At the end of the tour you will be happy to receive a cellar’s present – a few bottles of collection wines.

High officials, scientists and thousand of tourists from more than one hundred countries visit and leave Moldova’s treasure through greatest moments of satisfaction.

The astronaut Yuri Gagarin, who visited the cellar in the 60s, said to have spent two days in Cricova’s labyrinths, promised, “if the Earth will lack metals to print medals for the local wines, I will deliver it from the moon or other planets”.

source: www.moldovarious.com

Publicat de Unknown 12:35

Chateau Cojusna winery is a treasure of Moldovan wine-making

In 1908, a vineyard in one of the Moldovan villages, Cojusna, was founded. The chateau made the wines entirely on French expertise.

Cojusna wine cellar is a smaller cellar in the close proximity of Chisinau city. It is located in Straseni district. Its industrial unit is situated above the ground and its wine collection is placed underground.Cojusna wine plant was founded more than a century ago and till nowadays it is one of the top companies that creates and exports wines and strong drinks with the exposure time surpasses 20 years. The wine cellar of the village is situated in the region of Cojusna, near the Moldovan capital Chisinau, provides an endless supply of wines produced here in the fruitful district. The wine complex has two tasting halls and a room for guests.At Cojusna wine factory you may get accustomed with wine processing, and the exclusive architectural style of tasting halls invites you to appreciate the production of local wine-makers. 

The connoisseurs will discover such kinds of wines, which make resemblance with the energy and finesse of Moldovan national dance. And infamous Purcari and Chumai wines will turn wine tasting ceremony into a true festivity.At the present time, Cojusna wine factory produces more than 10 denominations of famous wines, and their characteristics remain brilliant as always. If you like a national milieu, you will find a cosy place in the Stone Hall, painted in the Moldovan national style by local craftsmen. If you favour modern luxury, then you may arrange in the European White Hall designed particularly for such visitors.The Cojusna wine collection was founded by care hands of specialists from the establishment of Cojusna winery, and still remembers the history, lives and goes on.

The famous wine collection features one million bottles of wine and cellars are more than one kilometer long.The wines "Dumbrava din Cojusna" and "Cojusna" deserve the highest appreciation of wine specialists. They are real pearl, crown of cojusna moldova's wine-makers. These wines are available to try in the tasting rooms of "The Stone Hall" and "The European White Hall", where the guests are warmly invited. The oustanding architectural style of these tasting rooms will charm and encourage guests to try the delightful wines, offered by the native wine-makers. The Stone Hall and The European White Hall's doors are always open for guests who are welcome to order light snacks, lunch and gala dinner.The winery complex features friendly and hospitable English speaking guides and can organise individual and group tours. The excursions should be booked in advance. There is no need in a car and the tour is a little inexpensive. The excursion last two-three hours.

Publicat de Unknown 00:44