Umbrele, Chardonnay, Vilie Timisului, Romania, 2018

Producer Profile

Back in 1988, three families decided to invest in a winery in Romania, starting with 650 hectares of slightly unloved vineyards and a rusty, once state-owned winery.

Yet Englishman Philip Cox and his Romanian wife Elvira, have turned the Cramele Recas Estate into the most successful winery in Romania. Recas are now recognised globally for their impressive scale and breadth of fascinating wines, including natural and orange wine from organic grapes. Despite the scale the emphasis is on making good wines that over-deliver, and as a result they’ve struck on a magic formula that has seen sales and demand boom. Vineyards are a combination of evolved plantings from 1447 and more recent planting, whilst the winery has seen significant investment and boasts state of the art facilities where innovation thrives. Recas are in every way a modern, dynamic winery, whose open minded approach and quality sets them apart … a winery you really can’t ignore.

Viticulture

Grown on a variety of soils, from cracking clays to limestone rich loams. All vineyards are non-irrigated. Trained to vertical shoot positioned trellis with 2 to 4 canes per vine with replacement spurs. Inter vine soil management by cultivation. Yields from 5 to 15 tonnes per hectare. 90% mechanical harvested

Winemaking

Grapes are night harvested to arrive cool at the winery. Crushed and de stemmed then the must is chilled on the way to the press. Pressings and free-run fractions separated for fermentation. Juice clarified by flotation then racked to stainless steel for fermentation at 10-15deg C over 2 to 3 weeks. When fermented to dryness, the wine is centrifuged and cold stabilized prior to blending, filtering and bottling.

Oak Ageing

Time: 45 Days
Type: American Oak
% wine oaked: 25
% new oak: None

Tasting Note

A wonderfully fresh and fruity Chardonnay with amazing fruit and power. Ripe and thick, with lots of mango and toasted oak--a Chardonnay showing all the attributes. There's a chewy, cherry, buttery, intensely tropical side to this full-bodied wine.

Food Matching

Grilled satay chicken, veal, shrimp, crab and lobster