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Wine Tasting at the Urlăţeanu Manor

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3mttours
3mttours
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Wine Tasting at the Urlăţeanu Manor

  • December 12, 2005
  • Rated 5 of 5 by 3mttours from Bucharest, Romania
Wine Tasting at the Urlăţeanu Manor

The Curbed Pre-Carpathian Hills build one of the widely recognised Romanian areas of producing wine. The perfect climate and the good soil are the conditions of good results in wine-making. That is the reason why here has been formed the biggest vineyards of the country, the one of Dealu Mare. After the downturn of communism in 1989, this vineyard has been split in several smaller ones, partly because the state has returned some of the vineyards to the previous owners. Some have sold their vineyards and some of them belong now to international companies.

 

Urlăţeanu family, the nobles that gave ultimately the name of the village, has built in Urlaţi a manor, where they started producing wine in 1922. In more recent times, the cellars have been bought by the British company Halewood Wine cellars, that have diversified the wine sorts produced here. Namely, there are several brands under which they sell now. Prahova Valley wines (including all their wine sorts) are matured in inox barricks, giving thus a light wine, the Reserve wines include a mixture, of which 50% of the wine matured in inox barricks and 50% in oak barrels, Special Reserve wines are also mixed, but here 75% of the wine is matured in oak barrels, and Byzantium, a brand of wine that is matured 100% in oak barrels, which results in a "Grand Vin". The result is different degrees of wooden tannins that are in the wine, thus making a certain sort fit for different dishes.

 

The tour of the cellars presents the initial method of wine making at the Urlăţeanu manor. At the beginning of the 20th century in Romania, it was quite a challenge to move wooden barrels from one place to another, especially if you had not enough place. That is why the whole process relied rather much on the force of gravity – the cellars are on three levels, each of which represented one stage of the wine-producing process. At the top level, the grapes were pressed and the must flew down one level for further processing. When this was once finished, the wine was moved in other barricks, one level lower for maturation or bottling. The former barricks were now ready for receiving the next year’s wine.

 

It is a place where people not knowing much of wine and wine tasting will discover plenty new things, including wine-tasting methods, while connaisseurs will be delighted. Lunch or dinner can go with the wine tasting upon prior arrangement.

 

For ready-made tours, check out the site of 3 MT Tours or write them an email.

From journal Urlăţeanu Manor

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