Prince Stirbey Negru de Dragasani 2016

This wine is made by the family-owned Prince Stirbey winery, whose predecessors (i.e. the Prince) used to make wine in a palace in Bucharest, from the 17th century onwards, that was served in restaurants including that on the Orient Express. Stirbey was appropriated by the communist party in 1949 and then returned to the family over 50 years later in 2001.

That (wipes brow) is the first part of this wine's story. The second part is that a previous vintage of Negru de Dragasani was chosen from a blind line-up by Steve Saunders, the winner of The Palate 2014 as the wine that he wanted Oddbins to stock. This is what the affable Bristolian had to say about his (fantastic) choice:

"One taste of this and you'll know Romanian wine is firmly back on the map. Full of rich blackberry and cherry fruit with fine tannins and a wonderfully smooth finish that goes on and on. Like reclining on a bed of silk pillows while angels dance on your tongue, this is a truly sumptuous drop."
With the same dense cherry and berry flavours and velvety tannins, this vintage is just as great! Treat yourself to this bottle of luxury and be a Prince (or Princess) for a day whenever you like.

Since the late 17th century, the Prince Stirbey family, one of the oldest and most influential noble families of Romania, owned a wine estate in Dragasani. Their wines were aged in the huge cellars of Stirbey Palace in Bucharest and delivered to many places in Europe, garnering appreciation and awards of outstanding excellency. Expropriated by the communist regime in 1949, the estate was re-appropriated in 2001 to Ileana Kripp-Costinescu, granddaughter of Princess Maria Stirbey. Together with her husband Jakob, she gave new life to the winery and its 25 hectares of vineyards, producing approximately 100,000 top quality bottles a year, mainly from local grape varieties.

Ileana is inspired by her love for the charming people and the enchanting landscape of Dragasani and keenly respects her family´s winemaking principles, preserved by each generation. This means making natural high quality wines of local grape varieties, revealing their special character, the spirit of the place, its traditions and its people.

Oliver Bauer was born in Württemberg, Germany, in a vintners´ family and undertook an apprenticeship in three wineries in Germany and France, gained a Cellar Master degree at the Senior Technical College of Veitshöchheim. She went on to practice as winemaker in two German wineries, before joining Stirbey in 2003.

The vines are just five years old and are planted at a density of 5,000 vines per hectare and yielding seven tons of grapes. Handpicked grapes were de-stemmed and fermented spontaneously, without adding selected yeast, in stainless steel tanks with pigeage three times a day, before being aged for a year in 300 litre Romanian oak barrels. It was soft-filtered before being bottled.

This is a beautifully balanced, medium bodied red wine with dense black cherry and berries, hints of wild herbs and rounded, velvety tannins.