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 1200ha 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.

Dark in colour, red plum, cherry and mulled spicy aromatics. Beautiful flavours, almost jammy in its concentration. Layers of complex black cherry, raspberry and cinnamon, with a long and lingering finish.

Serve with a tuna steak and fresh salad, or a classic lamb neck fillet and fries.

This is everything you wish for at a bargain price, and arguably the best entry level Pinot Noir in the market. Very ripe Pinot grapes are picked by machine, benefiting from a speedy transfer to the state of the art winery before the grapes are partly de-stemmed, crushed and then fermented on skins for around 20 days, with gentle pumping over and stirring with lees to ensure the maximum juicy sweetness and ripe velvety tannins are extracted. the wine is settled, filtered and bottled young with a minimal CO2 to preserve a natural vivacity in the wine

Brian Elliott, Daily Record, May 2020 "Lockdown is a good time to consider switching to online wine operations and this delightful and great value pinot noir could be a smart place to start. It is from the western end of Romania (towards Hungary) and is made by one of the country’s top producers. Enjoy, then, its floral raspberry and cherry fruit, blood orange acidity, long clove and cherry finish supported by skilfully balanced tannin." The Telegraph, July 2020, "Romania is a secretly good source of everyday drinking (as opposed to sublimely hedonistic) pinot noir and this one shows why: it sings of summer with scents of red berries and cherry blossom, with a gentle rosewoody spice in the background."