Producer

Cramele Recas

Legend has it that the Banat region of Romania was where Bacchus, the god of wine, spent his childhood – certainly the first records of viticulture date back to the Roman Empire when it invaded and annexed the central part of Dacia in 106 AD. The region west of Romania, surrounding the city of Timisoara, is the home of the multi award winning Recaş. The vineyard areas and wine region have both benefited from centuries of influence from Hungarian, Bavarian and Austrian immigrants – all laying claim to have influenced the present day viticulture. Recaş is now a 700ha modern day winery, exporting to both Europe and the Americas. It has a Mediterranean climate, cooler than the rest of Romania, and dryer with a longer harvest season, allowing many varieties to ripen easily.

Tasting Notes

Dark straw colour with orange hints, the nose is a delicate mélange of quince, Williams pear and a hint of vanilla. A complex and structured wine, with elegant but discreet fruit flavours of stone fruits, backed up with a powerful tannin structure and long finish. A perfect wine for lovers of natural products, with minimal intervention, balanced and structured yet pure and fresh, the lack of sulpher dioxide in this type of wines re-defines what to expect from the taste profile of white wines.

Food Matches

Hard and semi-hard cheeses, Caesar salad, oven dishes with sauces and reductions, chicken and turkey dishes, Fish, large crustaceans (lobster, langoustine, river lobster), tuna steak, fish stew, desserts with vanilla, peaches, mango, pineapple.

Vinification

Handpicked grown grapes were destemmed , lightly crushed then maccerated with full skin contact for 3.5 weeks at low temperatures, until fully dry and completed 100% malolactic fermentation.Then all wines were blended and lightly oak aged for 2 months in 1 year old french barriques, before a natural cold stabilization, and bottling with no further SO2 addition or filtration.

Press Comments

“Orange’ generally refers to the colour but this skin-contact blend really does taste slightly orangey. Good balance and just a little bit of chewiness on the end. This would be a great introduction to the style.” Jancis Robinson, The Financial Times, 26th November 2022 “Orange wine is more or less a white wine that’s been made like a red – that’s to say with grape skin contact with the juice giving more texture and grip to the final wine. Orange wine like this is terrific with the Ham and Pineapple Pizza and mimics a similarly fruity and savoury balance. With no additives, this natural wine from Romania is something completely unique to serve chilled.” Olly Smith, The Daily Mail, 29th October 2022