Culture
5 family-owned wineries and their internationally awarded wines that could offer exclusive experience
People who already had a chance to visit Moldova surely visited at least one of the most famous wineries of the country: Cricova, Purcari, Chateau Vartely, Mileștii Mici, Asconi or maybe Castel Mimi. Beside big and popular wineries, which produce a wide range of wines for import and export, there are also small, family-owned vineyards attached to wisely engineered wineries that deliver unique products, beloved and awarded internationally, and that are even more interesting to be discovered. So prepare a notebook and take some notes.
Fautor
The Fautor winery, belonging to Lipcan family, was founded at the end of the 20th century. The winemaker’s talent, advanced technologies, the unique area where the vineyards grow and the variety of produced wines are the main ingredients of the Fautor success story.
Both the winery and the plantations are located in the Tigheci microzone, being part of the Valul lui Traian area – a UNESCO protected wine-growing area in Southern Moldova where protected geographical indication (PGI) wines are obtained. The experts claim that this region’s environment is similar to those of the famous wine regions Bordeaux (France) and Piedmont (Italy).
Photo credit: Dumitru Brinzan
Fautor is one of the most awarded Moldovan wineries in the last years, having a unique portfolio of rare varieties and world exclusive blends, as the official page of the company states. The wine catalogue of Fautor includes a beautiful selection of wines, including their most internationally awarded varieties: Negre – a blend of Feteasca Neagra and Rara Neagra (red dry wine), Fumé Blanc – made of Sauvignion Blanc grape variety (white dry wine) and Illustro – a blend of Cabernet Sauvignion and Merlot (red dry wine).
Vinaria din Vale
Vinaria din Vale is one more family-owned winery (Davidești family) with deep roots in tradition and a great passion for excellence. It is another winery located in the Valul lui Traian area, the vineyards there having a favorable climate and fertile soils that ensure the personality and quality of grapes.
source: vinaria.md
Another important detail in their wine production is the maturation in oak barrels brought from France that offer soft taste and stunning aromas. The most appreciated wines of Vinaria din Vale are Traminer, Feteasca Neagră (red dry wine), Rosé and their blend of Chardonnay and Fetească Albă (white dry wine).
Carpe Diem
source: carpediem.md
Gitana
Gitana winery is special because of its elegant wines that managed to preserve the personal identity of each variety of grapes in their flavor and structure, without much human intervention. Thanks to the winery owners’ (Dulgher family) know-how and the specific of the region (Valul lui Traian) where the vineyards are located, Gitana was internationally recognised and won over time many awards in the specialised competitions. The most honoured with awards wines from Gitana are their Cabernet Sauvignon and Feteasca Regală varieties.
source: gitana.md
This winery marked a milestone in the rebirth of Moldovan wines when the Dulgher family purchased the “Tiganca” (tr. gipsy) wine factory in a deplorable state in 1999 and gave it a new life.
Novak
The family-owned winery Novak is a new look at the traditional wine-making, combining traditions and innovative technologies. As the majority of the described wineries, it is also located in the Valul lui Traian microzone.
The story of Novak winemaking dates back to the late 19th, being started by Emanuel Novak. Afterwards, the knowledge was transferred to his successors. The old-fashioned traditions served as a base for the today’s winery. At Novak winery both classic varieties (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Malbec), traditional varieties (Rara Neagra, Feteasca Regala) and even some forgotten varieties of grapes (Alb de Onitcani, Floricica, Kaz Aya) are used in production. In such a way, in addition to the already well-known varieties of wines and blends, the Novak winery placed emphasis on the revival of the original Moldovan varieties, some of which, until recently, were forgotten or considered lost. The Alb de Onițcani wine variety, for example, won the gold medal at Mundus Vini 2018 and other international contests.
source: novak.md
There are even more family-owned, worth mentioning wineries in Moldova, such as Gogu winery, Atu winery, Et cetera, Equinox, Kara Gani. They produce rich-flavoured wines and offer an unforgettable experience to their customers. Therefore, more is yet to come.
Photo: vinaria.md
Society
“They are not needy, but they need help”. How Moldovan volunteers try to create a safe environment for the Ukrainian refugees
At the Government’s ground floor, the phones ring constantly, the laptop screens never reach standby. In one corner of the room there is a logistics planning meeting, someone has a call on Zoom with partners and donors, someone else finally managed to take a cookie and make some coffee. Everyone is exhausted and have sleepy red eyes, but the volunteers still have a lot of energy and dedication to help in creating a safe place for the Ukrainian refugees.
“It’s like a continuous bustle just so you won’t read the news. You get home sometimes and you don’t have time for news, and that somehow helps. It’s a kind of solidarity and mutual support,” says Vlada Ciobanu, volunteer responsible for communication and fundraising.
The volunteers group was formed from the very first day of war. A Facebook page was created, where all types of messages immediately started to flow: “I offer accommodation”, “I want to help”, “I want to get involved”, “Where can I bring the products?”, “I have a car and I can go to the customs”. Soon, the authorities also started asking for volunteers’ support. Now they all work together, coordinate activities and try to find solutions to the most difficult problems.
Is accommodation needed for 10, 200 or 800 people? Do you need transportation to the customs? Does anyone want to deliver 3 tons of apples and does not know where? Do you need medicine or mobile toilets? All these questions require prompt answers and actions. Blankets, sheets, diapers, hygiene products, food, clothes – people bring everything, and someone needs to quickly find ways of delivering them to those who need them.
Sometimes this collaboration is difficult, involves a lot of bureaucracy, and it can be difficult to get answers on time. “Republic of Moldova has never faced such a large influx of refugees and, probably because nobody thought this could happen, a mechanism of this kind of crisis has not been developed. Due to the absence of such a mechanism that the state should have created, we, the volunteers, intervened and tried to help in a practical way for the spontaneous and on the sport solutions of the problems,” mentions Ecaterina Luțișina, volunteer responsible for the refugees’ accommodation.
Ana Maria Popa, one of the founders of the group “Help Ukrainians in Moldova/SOS Українці Молдовa” says that the toughest thing is to find time and have a clear mind in managing different procedures, although things still happen somehow naturally. Everyone is ready to intervene and help, to take on more responsibilities and to act immediately when needed. The biggest challenges arise when it is necessary to accommodate large families, people with special needs, for which alternative solutions must be identified.
Goods and donations
The volunteers try to cope with the high flow of requests for both accommodation and products of all kinds. “It came to me as a shock and a panic when I found out that both mothers who are now in Ukraine, as well as those who found refuge in our country are losing their milk because of stress. We are trying to fill an enormous need for milk powder, for which the demand is high and the stocks are decreasing”, says Steliana, the volunteer responsible for the distribution of goods from the donation centers.
Several centers have been set up to collect donations in all regions of Chisinau, and volunteers are redirecting the goods to where the refugees are. A system for processing and monitoring donations has already been established, while the volunteer drivers take over the order only according to a unique code.
Volunteers from the collection centers also do the inventory – the donated goods and the distributed goods. The rest is transported to Vatra deposit, from where it is distributed to the placement centers where more than 50 refugees are housed.
When they want to donate goods, but they don’t know what would be needed, people are urged to put themselves in the position of refugees and ask themselves what would they need most if they wake up overnight and have to hurriedly pack their bags and run away. Steliana wants to emphasise that “these people are not needy, but these people need help. They did not choose to end up in this situation.”
Furthermore, the volunteer Cristina Sîrbu seeks to identify producers and negotiate prices for products needed by refugees, thus mediating the procurement process for NGOs with which she collaborates, such as Caritas, World Children’s Fund, Polish Solidarity Fund, Lifting hands, Peace Corps and others.
One of the challenges she is facing now is the identifying a mattress manufacturer in the West, because the Moldovan mattress manufacturer that has been helping so far no longer has polyurethane, a raw material usually imported from Russia and Ukraine.
Cristina also needs to find solutions for the needs of the volunteer groups – phones, laptops, gsm connection and internet for a good carrying out of activities.
Hate messages
The most difficult thing for the communication team is to manage the hate messages on the social networks, which started to appear more often. “Even if there is some sort of dissatisfaction from the Ukrainian refugees and those who offer help, we live now in a very diverse society, there are different kind of people, and we act very differently under stress,” said Vlada Ciobanu.
Translation by Cătălina Bîrsanu
On the Nistru, near the village of Varnița, a few colored pens with blue dots in the middle travel up and down the river. If you get closer, the pens become kayaks, and the blue dots – the students of the kayak-canoe school. You can also see that there is a larger boat, where the trainer Mihai Chitaica is sitting, taking care that nobody flips over, that the children paddle well, and encouraging a healthy competition. On the water, nobody asks them where they’re from and what language they speak. Nistru and Mihai Chitaica unite them all: the students from Gura Bîcului, from Varința and the ones from the North district under the administration of Bender.
Mihai Chitaica, Master in Sports, trains around 15 children in kayak-canoe
He smiles a lot and the red cheeks emphasize his good mood. This is how he wants the children to remember him. Mihai Chitaica is 68 years old, he has retired a long time ago, and he does everything for the children who come here to learn how to paddle on Nistru river.
Mihai Chitaica is a master in sports. Besides training and competing as a veteran, for many years he has worked in the field of carpentry, having a small workshop near the river, in the village of Varnița, Anenii Noi. But, while seeing the children and their trainers of kayak-canoe from Bender, kayaking down the river, his heart would melt. So he put a kayak on the river and slowly remembered the rowing technique, the rhythm and what it feels like when the drops of water sprinkle your face. He worked up the courage and rowed down the river.
He understood that he can do more, and today he trains at least 15 children. Some of them were “stolen” by sports lyceums or clubs from other countries, and he is very proud of them. He is not upset, because it is “the choice of each of the child,” says Mihai Chitaica. He is very happy with their results, at the same time saddened by the fact that children couldn’t train during the pandemic – they couldn’t train enough, couldn’t organize competitions in Varnița, couldn’t go abroad for competitions.
The school is attended by the children from Gura Bîcului, from Varnița, but also from the North district under the Bender administration. “When they come here, I tell them ‘You are all equal to me. When you are here with me, you are my responsibility for the two hours, and you have to behave as I tell you to.’ One of the trainers from Bender once told me: ‘I noticed that your children don’t have quarrels.’ And I told him that I just don’t accept it, it’s that simple. If I hear any swearing, they get punished. You know how I punish them? I make them do push ups, lift weights.”
Varnița is a village in the Anenii Noi rayon. It is located on the right bank of Nistru river. It borders with the Bender, the North district being a part of this town, and it is under the administration of Tiraspol.
Varnița is a village in the Anenii Noi rayon. It is located on the right bank of Nistru river. It borders Bender, the North district being a part of this town, and it is under the administration of Tiraspol.
Professional kayaks are narrower than the ones for beginners
In the center of the neighboring village, Gura Bîcului, students are waiting for Mr Mihai, as they call him. On the way to Varința, where the classes of kayak-canoe take places, after the children are picked up in the minibus, they start to discuss the current situation:
— We have a new outbreak in our village.
— Don’t tell me that.
— There are people infected.
— Where? Show me! Who is infected?
— There are in Bulboaca!
— Well, they’re in Bulboaca. But I don’t live in Bulboaca. I live in GB!
— Ok.
Then, when they get to the gym, they change their clothes, run a few circles for warming up and come back to the kayaks near the gym. Two of the younger kids approach a kayak and each of them grabs one by the tip. The children clumsily lift the kayaks, as they slightly shake while being carried towards the river. The older ones put their kayaks on the shoulders and carry them with much ease.
“Hey, girls, stop occupying in the wharf!” shouts the teacher. Mihaela, Cătălina and Ana row just a couple of times and already reach the middle of the river. They stay together to chat, but also to compete. “Align. Ready? Go!” shouts the teacher and the three girls lift their paddles almost simultaneously and, while tilting to the left, they plunge them into the water. They row with their entire bodies, then, in a second, they lift the paddles again and plunge them to their right with the same force. In a few seconds, Cătălina is two meters in front of the other girls. She is the fastest one.
Cătălina Cotelea, one of the fastest students
After rowing, they move to the gym. Cătălina Cotelea is 14 years old and she joined the kayak class in 2018. She has a cold and had to move to the gym, where she teases the younger students. She sits in the lotus position: “Get your bum lower!” Cătălina speaks to her little brother, Gheorghe, with a bossier tone of voice. “She’s neither kind, no mean,” he adds, mentioning that she is actually just strict.
She doesn’t lose sight of the four boys she is in charge with, making them do the plank, then sit in the air, like on a chair, with their straight backs next to the wall. Her tanned face covered in freckles, once teased by her colleagues, now looks too serious to make fun of. But not to Gheorghe. He allows himself to be silly and feel special, because the trainer today is his older sister
In the winter, the younger kids move to the gym and train for spring, when it’s warmer and the ice melts. This is when they take their kayaks on the water
Cătălina inspired Gheorghe to join the kayak-canoe class. He is nine years old and “a month ago, I was the youngest one in my group. And now, I believe that I am the best. I paddle very well and I have the second-best speed.” And Mr Mihai agrees. Last year, he took the boy for his first competition, even if he was two years younger than the allowed age in his category. “He is quick-witted,” confirms Mihai Chitaica, mentioning that he was awarded the first place in the age category of 10-11 years old.
Gheorghe wishes he becomes a gym teacher. “If you are a math teacher, you need to have nerves of steel. But if you are a gym teacher, you tell the children ‘Let’s go, let’s run, let’s…’ you only give commands!” explains the youngest member of the Cotelea family.
The expenses for competitions are most often undertaken by the teacher Mihai Chitaica, but also for the training, the fuel, the kayaks, their repairs, and other expenses. In order to make sure that children can train, Miahi Chitaica decided to make some money from tourism. Previously, he would earn money from carpentry and renting the gazebos, now he has at least eight kayaks and four small homes he can rent to tourists.
Last year, for example, he organized a tour of 26 km for eight men. “In the kayaks I put some wood for the fire, they took their tents and groceries with them. They spent the night near the river and enjoyed it a lot. They now want to come back with their families.” The experimental tour started in the village of Șerpeni, with a rest stop in Speia, and the night was spent in Telița. Although it was a success, he couldn’t continue with the tours this summer due to the pandemic.
Ana Glijinscaea is one of the four girls who joined the kayak-canoe class
Then he bought some lumber and other materials in order to build a pontoon for tourists. “It will be ready in spring,” assures us Mihai Chitaica and asks us to imagine a pontoon floating on Nistru, with a tent on it, and a few young people partying and having a barbeque.
The trainer has great plans for local tourism. These plans will get him closer to his biggest dream – “putting on the water as many children as possible”.
Text: Georgeta Carasiucenco
Photos: Tatiana Beghiu
Editing: Anastasia Condruc
From eight in the morning till noon, every Thursday and Sunday, people lay their merchandise on the main street of Dubăsarii Vechi. Even if there is a market place on one side of the road, behind a fence, with many suitable stands, very few merchants use them. They prefer to park their vans in front of the gates and open the back doors to the street. They sell tomatoes, eggplants, beans, fish, second hand trousers, hay bales, cooking discs, auto parts, pink dresses bought decades ago in Moscow with a hundred dollars and sold today with one hundred lei. Not only locals sell at the market, merchants come from the entire region, from Corjova to Tiraspol.
Once people start gathering their stuff and the village is no longer engulfed in the turmoil of the market, you can go on and visit the village. The locals ride their bikes in a hurry and the old ladies are having a chat sitting on the benches next to the fences of their yards. In front of the mayor’s hall a few workers are spreading and leveling the gravel on the road.
An Nistru, careless about the tumult of the village, continues its way to the sea. It is always there, adorned with autumn colours. Besides the river, other places in the village attract tourists: the mansion of Nicolae Donici, the tomb of the Donici-Macri family and the secular oaks grove “Pohorela”.
Mansion of Nicolae Donici
Nicolae Donici was born in 1874. Because he became an orphan at the age of eight, he was put under the care of his aunt, Elena Lisacovschi.
After he studied astronomy in Odessa, in 1908 Nicolae Donici returns home and near his mansion builds the first observatory in Bessarabia. He continues his scientific research in Dubăsarii Vechi until June 1940 when USSR demanded from Romania to evacuate its civil administration and troops from the territory. It was then when Donici was constrained to leave the country. He came back in 1941 and found his mansion and observatory destroyed. Three years later, Donici leaves Moldova forever and moves to France.
For a long time the mansion was administered by the local kolkhoz, which changed its aspect, covering the facade with tiles and building and annex. Still, on the right back wall of the mansion you can still see the old plaster made out of “eggs, lime and sand”, as explained by the vice mayor of the village, Constantin Macarenco.
At the mansion you can also find the ornamented “stairway to heaven”. It is an outside metallic stairway used by Nicolae Donici to climb up to his laboratory so he wouldn’t disturb the inhabitants of the house when doing his nocturnal observations. You can still see this stairway today. What is interesting about it is that it was designed to change the angle of the steps during winter time in order to prevent slipping.
The bust of Nicolae Donici stands tall in front of the mansions. It was installed recently, after the previous one was stolen and sold for scrap.
Macri-Donici Family Tomb
If you go to Dubăsarii Vechi, you must visit the tomb built in the second half of the 19th century. What makes is unique is its history and decorative elements.
After the death of his father, Nicolae Donici and his mother, Limonia, move to his aunt. Four years later, his mother becomes ill with typhus and is isolated in a separate room in order to prevent the spreading of the infection. But because Nicolae misses his mother very much, his aunt breaks the rules and cracks the door of the isolated room so he could see his mother from a distance. But soon after, Limonia dies. She was only 35 years old.
Her embalmed body was placed in the tomb built in the yeard of the church in Dubăsarii Vechi founded by Nicolae Macri, the grandfather of the scientist from his mother’s side, who fled to Bessarabia from Greece. The tomb was built by the master Tuzini after the sketch by Alexandru Bernardazzi.
Two oil lamps were always lit in the tomb. And inside the hermetically sealed glass coffin you could see “a young woman with a pale, delicate face, almost looking alive. She wore a white coronet, and on her finger – a little ring”, according to the authors of the research “The youthful enthusiasm and the bold dream of the astrophysicist Nicolae Donici, founder of a scientific citadel on Nistru river”. During the soviet period, the tomb was vandalized and the coffin incinerated. But the structure and its decorative elements are still there.
“Pohorela” secular oaks grove
The grove is located in the Northern part of the village. There are over 130 secular trees. The strongest ones are more than 1,5 m in diameter. Some of the oaks are more than a century old, and others are believed to be even 300 years old.
Legends say that this forest was used by the tatars as camp site when they were coming to invade the local villages. One nigh, the villagers burnt the camp, thus burning the forest as well. “Pogorela” in Russian means “burned” and, through generations, this word became “Pohorela”. The grove is also called “Pogoreloe”, “Pohorila”.
The name of the village comes also from oaks, in Russian – „dub” [дуб]. According to the vice mayor Constantin Cacarenco, people from the village were using dubases, small boats made from oak trunks, and dubăsar was the person who was steering them.
Usually, the vice mayor of the village, Constantin Macarenco, is conducting the tours to tourists and officials from different countries or from Chișinău, to partners and people interested in investing in the village. But local authorities are not able to organize tours for all tourists. “The mayor’s hall can’t perform economic activities”, explains the vice mayor, adding that there need to be other methods for developing local tourism.
Once you get to Dubăsarii Vechi, you will notice that the water in Nistru flows slower than in the North of the country and that its banks are closer to each other. This difference is due to the Dubăsari hydropower plant. But fishermen consider it an advantage – the narrowing of the river is an indicator of its depth. In other words, the river is deeper and it means that there can be more fish. If you want to fish here, you should know that experienced fishermen from the village mentioned a few deeper pits where larger fish might be habitating. It’s important to “feed” the place and have a water resistant tent in case you want to spend a few days here. You can find food in the village, Dubăsarii Vechi is famous for growing tasty vegetables.
Produced with the financial support of the European Union within the “Support to Confidence Building Measures” project, implemented by UNDP. The opinions expressed in this material do not necessarily reflect the official position of the EU or UNDP.
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