Moldova, Chisinau “Wine cellars of Cricova. Tourist Moldova: guide to wine tours - Locals What are the largest wine cellars in the world? Probably somewhere in France? In Italy? In Spain? But no, much closer - in Moldova...

The largest wine cellars in the world? Probably somewhere in France? In Italy? In Spain? But no, much closer - in Moldova...

Friends have long talked about gigantic wine storage facilities located in Moldova. I thought the guys were exaggerating under the impression of the tastings. But that was not the case! It turns out that in Moldova, near the village of Malye Milesti, there are the largest wine cellars in the world (this is a Guinness record). The length of the Milestii Mici galleries is 200 km, of which about 50 have been developed. However, the uniqueness of the place lies not only in this.

Modern Moldova lies on the territory of the ancient Sarmatian Sea, so a significant part of the rocks here are limestones. Parallelepipeds used for construction are cut directly from limestone rock. Since stone has been mined since time immemorial, there are many ancient mined adits in the country, including Malomilesti, located in the suburbs of Chisinau.

The terroir of Moldova favors the cultivation of grapes, and under the influence of active human activity it has been discovered that its depths are also capable of serving winemakers. Thanks to limestone, which does not conduct heat, the galleries maintain the same temperature and humidity all year round, optimal for storing wine: +12 C (in summer up to +14 C), and 82-95% relative humidity. Such conditions allow wines to age beautifully. As it turns out, what's good for wines is... not so good for photographers. At first it was almost impossible to shoot - the lens fogged up and, until it got used to the underground humidity, ignored my desperate attempts to correct the situation.

I found myself in a huge underground wine city in the middle of winter, and, frankly, I didn’t expect the excitement at this time of year. On the surface - a quiet frosty morning. Passenger cars with tourists languishing in anticipation lined up in front of the entrance to the adits. Soon the gates opened, and we fully experienced the meaning of the expression “From the spot to the quarry”! Experienced drivers know every meter here, so, not having time to say goodbye to the meager winter light, we rushed at full speed somewhere forward and obviously deeper. Within a few minutes, headlights began to snatch out of the darkness huge barrels standing in rows along the walls.

After passing a few more turns, we realized that the name “wine city” is not so figurative. The road twisted and led steeply downwards, revealing new signs every few kilometers: Cabernet Street, Aligote Street, Feteasca Street, Chardonnay Street. The street names correspond to the wines stored here. The pride of Milest is the street of the International Organization of Grapes and Wine (L"Organisation Internationale de la Vigne et du Vin).

The first stop is at the fountain in the Pinot street area, where a cascade of spring water descends directly from the porous depths. Nearby there are huge bottles of Crimean and Krasnodar oak with a volume of up to 2000 dal, each with a hole at the bottom. When a barrel is prepared for filling with wine, the most fragile workers climb inside to clean the vessel by hand. They work in masks and in pairs - the second one insures from the outside to avoid accidents.

Finally, we find ourselves in the galleries. Their walls are a series of niches in the form of arches, called kazy (“casa” is translated from Moldavian as “house”). Each kaza is numbered, it has a “passport” where the name of the wine is written (there are more than 20 in total), the year of harvest, the year the bottle was laid, and their quantity. A full caza holds one and a half thousand bottles.

The 1902 Jerusalem Easter wine (the oldest in the country) is stored in another wine tourism center - the Cricova cellars. They are also amazing in size, but, perhaps, “too mastered.” Behind the pompous halls, big names of guests and owners of the kazakhs, the feeling of a magical place where wine quietly matures, acquiring new qualities every year, is lost. But such a feeling of detachment from the world does not leave Milesti.

The oldest wine in this vault - 1969 - is not for sale. But there are also rarities here that can be purchased by choosing a bottle directly in the gallery. For example, the famous vermouth from 25 herbs “Bouquet of Moldova” from 1973 (costs almost 3 thousand dollars), or wine from a blend of white grape varieties and herbs “Morning Dew” from 1975, which is no longer produced (about 2.5 thousand dollars) . Among the simpler samples is the famous Moldavian wine Negru de Purcari, including the famous 1986 and 1987 vintages.

The next turn of the labyrinth leads to the hall where sparkling wine (from chardonnay and aligote) is in the process of secondary fermentation. I asked the Milestii Mici technologist whether such a busy schedule of visiting cellars had a negative impact on the wine. I was assured that neither photo flashes nor conversations would interfere with shutter speed. But they are afraid of earthquakes here. This is not uncommon for Moldova, so all construction is carried out taking into account the seismic activity of the region. Basements are no exception. Every few meters on the ceiling, with grooves from a stone-cutting machine, iron rods are visible - they support the underground city like a skeleton.

The galleries with lanterns, dusty dark glass bottles, a spirit of calm and nobility seem endless, and you can’t do it without a guide. Led by a girl guide who, although with an accent, speaks Russian fluently and clearly, we approach a blank stone wall. And then the most daring rides at Disneyland come to mind! The wall suddenly begins to rumble and slowly moves away, revealing a small room with kazas. This is a secret room where, during Prohibition, the most valuable samples of the vault were hidden - about 50 thousand bottles.

More than two decades after those difficult events for the wine-producing country, we find wines here that have not been produced in Moldova for a long time: local Marsala, Cahor Ciumay from the south of the country, Nectar wine with the addition of herbs and Tenderness from the Rkatsiteli variety.

The surprises don't end there. A few turns and we come to three wooden barrels in a suspiciously vertical position. Some of the tourists were offered, according to the rules of Moldovan hospitality, to turn the tap and pour wine into their mug. While the unlucky guest was struggling with the fake handle, the middle “barrel” swung open, revealing the entrance to the tasting room. A traditional violin and accordion began to play, and we found ourselves in a spacious room: a long table, portraits and a bust of the local ruler, that is, the ruler, Stefan the Great, who reigned in the 16th century and contributed to the flourishing of the state (he is also placed on banknotes of all denominations of the Moldovan currency called “ lei").

The slightly dumbfounded guests quickly returned to normal and took their seats according to the purchased tickets, or more precisely, according to the purchased tasting program. A group of 15 people began to celebrate someone's birthday, listening to the guide's stories and trying to toast the birthday boy. The young couple was invited to a separate set table. They were served Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon (“Codru”). Wines include meat and traditional baked vegetables. It turned out that the guys are readers of WhyWhyWine, and, having arrived from Moscow, they could not help but stop by the Moldovan cellars.

The time has come for relaxation from worries, communication over a glass of good wine. The French from Alsace sat comfortably near small barrels and trays of nuts. They spent their holidays in Romania and almost by chance went to Moldova for the weekend, and, according to them, were pleased. Especially Muscat and Chardonnay. At the next table, a flock of Chinese treated themselves to wine and admired the performance of musicians in national costumes. On the wall I noticed a bas-relief of an ancient story, where the hero for some reason had the face of the Moldovan actor Mihai Volontir, who played in the films “Gypsy” and “The Return of Budulai.”

Despite the numerous foreigners around, the feeling of something that belonged to me never left me. No longer Russia, but not yet Europe. This amazing underground area seems to exist under, or beyond, boundaries.

You remember the presence of the latter only in connection with the restriction on the export of alcohol (no more than 1.5 liters of wine and 1 liter of strong spirits) alcoholic drinks, if you go by train. Fortunately, restrictions do not apply to alcohol purchased at Duty Free at the Chisinau airport. How can you not bring anything if, having emerged from the dungeon, everyone is invited to the store-museum. On the walls there are vinification formulas, in the corner there is a wine press from the century before last, under glass in the floor there are objects from the rural life of Moldova, and everywhere there is wine from the cellars in orderly rows, waiting for its owners. Sometimes they are not only tourists!

"Milestii Mici" - Moldovan Las Vegas. The only thing you can win here is pleasure, but with instant marriage registration the situation is much simpler! A secretary is called from a nearby village, who legally signs couples for only 100 lei ($10). True, for this you need to be citizens of Moldova. But to get to the underground wine city, you don’t even need a visa - visa-free entry has been established for Russians in the republic.

Of course, one of the most popular and most interesting excursions in Moldova is a trip to wine cellars. There are many of them, and you probably won’t be able to visit them all, but the most famous ones, such as Cricova, Malye Milesti, Purcari, Branesti, Cojusna, Romanesti, are a must-see! Each of the cellars is unique and deserves a separate story. I will tell you about one of them today.

I remember distant Soviet times, when in Chisinau - the capital of sunny Moldova, many different all-Union and international conferences were held, including in physics. I had to participate in many of them, and some of them I organized. According to established tradition, the last question of any conference was a visit to one of the wine cellars for which Moldova was so famous! There was also a tasting room in Chisinau, where girls in national costumes first told the history of the preparation of this or that wine, then described the bouquet of which it consists, in what cases and for what diseases it is recommended to drink red or white wine, and in conclusion they brought a dozen glasses (for each) various wines, and the same number of small glasses of cognac. The tasting took place for an hour or more to the accompaniment of violin music, Moldavian dancing and light snacks. It was great, but visiting the cellars was still more interesting, and they were more popular. Nowadays, booking an excursion to any basement in Moldova is not a problem, if you had the money, but getting to the Cricova cellars under Soviet rule was not easy. Even a letter from the President of the Academy of Sciences did not help; permission from the Party Central Committee was required. Alas...at that time it was an unattainable dream. Much later, already during perestroika, while working at the Chisinau Polytechnic University, the gates of the Cricova cellars suddenly opened wide. The casket opened simply: my students majoring in winemaking were doing internships there, and each time they invited me to visit with them the world-famous Cricova cellars.

With students in practice in the Cricova cellars

Now I will try to explain why cellars have become so famous. Firstly, Moldovan wine cellars such as Cricova or Malye Milesti are the largest in the world, and they are listed in the Guinness Book. Secondly, there are entire underground wine cities with their own infrastructure, roads (more than 120 km of underground streets!), road signs, traffic lights, wine rivers flowing through wine pipelines, along the banks of which there are huge barrels instead of houses.

Scheme of an underground wine city with many kilometers of streets and avenues

After driving a few kilometers along the central Champagne Avenue, you can then turn onto Cabernet Street, cross Chardonnay Boulevard, Feteaschi Street (12 main underground streets bearing the names of wine varieties), and stop at the Wine and Cognac Museum.

Wine Museum in Cricova Cellars.

The Cricova collection includes more than a million bottles of old collection wines. Of course, these are mostly Cricova wines, but there are also wines from many countries around the world, including the famous Goering collection.

According to one legend, wines began to be collected here precisely on the basis of the collection of the Minister of Aviation of Nazi Germany, Hermann Goering. They say that he had the most beautiful paintings of naked women, the best watches and the best collection of wine. At the end of World War II, the Soviet army was advancing, and Goering was forced to leave his wine collection in Cricova. But this is just one of the legends, and it is not entirely true. There is indeed a Goering collection in Cricova, but it did not come from Goering. The Cricova wine cellars were built in 1952, after World War II, and wines from Goering’s collection were brought here from Moscow as reparations for the war. Some of the wines ended up in Georgia, some in Ukraine, and most of them ended up in Moldova, since the storage conditions here turned out to be ideal.

The wine collection is constantly updated. There are unique wines here, some of which are over a hundred years old. For example, Mosel wines, Burgundy, Sicilian, Portuguese ports...

And this is some of the French wines

I had to visit this museum several times, and I took more than one excursion, so I myself can work as a guide and answer many questions. People often ask about the cost of a particular bottle. I remember some examples. For example, a bottle of Muscat, made from late-ripening grapes, when the wine is still pure and the alcohol and sugar are natural, then the starting price of such a bottle is about 25 thousand dollars. Last year at Sotheby's, at the most expensive auction, a bottle of dry wine "Chateau Mouton Rothschild" was sold for 60 thousand dollars. There are 5 bottles of the same wine from the 1936 vintage in Cricova.

In general, the cost of collection wines depends on many parameters, and is not always determined only by their age, but is also determined by the number of such bottles in the world. The most expensive bottle of the Cricova cellars is Jewish Passover wine from Jerusalem 1902. This unique bottle is just one bottle produced in 1902. They offered 150 thousand dollars for it, but even for that price they refused to sell it, and it is now worthy decoration collection and the most expensive exhibit of the museum.

If you continue your car ride further through the Cricova wine cellars, then at a depth of about 80 meters underground there is a Champagne wine factory operating using French technology. In our country, semi-sweet champagne is traditionally preferred. This is also produced here, but in Cricova they are proud of their brut. It is aged in bottles for 3 years, and all this time they work on the champagne. If in France this is done by men, then in Moldova it is entrusted to women. They regularly rotate each bottle 45 degrees so that the sediment is distributed more evenly. One worker turns up to 40 thousand bottles per day. When the champagne is finally ripe, the neck is frozen and the temporary cork is removed, the sediment is removed, a permanent cork is installed and a label is glued. As the keeper of Cricova wine, Andrei Kholostenko, said: “When opening, champagne should not clap loudly, the sound should be like the sigh of a satisfied woman!” Well said!

When my friends from France come to visit me, I always try to organize an excursion to this plant for them. After small French cellars, to see many kilometers of adits with music stands of bottles is a state close to shock! They had never seen anything like this in France, and did not even imagine that it was possible. The quality of the wine is excellent, and many even liked it more than their native champagne. After the tasting, the French bought dozens of bottles and took them to their home in Paris or the province of Champagne to treat their family and friends with Moldovan champagne!

Kilometer-long adits with bottle stands

During these trips, I often had to drive myself, so I couldn’t join my friends in the tasting. But I often stopped the car at the filters, where they could scoop wine into a mug from a red, pink or white river and compare the taste. But in order to truly appreciate the quality of the wine, you must definitely stop by one of the tasting rooms. There are a lot of such halls on different wine streets, and it is advisable to know them. Among them there are such “thematic” decors as: “Sea Bottom”, “Casa Mare”, “Hunter (or Fireplace) Hall”, “Conference Hall” and others. This is the venue for a variety of events: national and international tastings, official and less formal meetings, high-level meetings, etc.

Part of the interior of the Cricova cellars for high-ranking persons

Not everyone is allowed into all the halls, but the books of Honorary Visitors contain many interesting names and stories. N.S. loved to be in Cricova. Khrushchev and L.I. Brezhnev. Not a single president who visited the Moldovan region avoided visiting wine cellars (including such personalities as Mao Tse Tung, Kim Il Sung, Jacques Chirac). Almost all high-ranking persons tasted wine from the Cricova collection. Everyone..., with the exception of the main alcoholic of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, whose wife was categorically against the excursion.

V.V. visited these cellars several times. Putin. By the way, he celebrated his fiftieth birthday in the Cricova cellars! President of Moldova Vladimir Voronin presented his Russian colleague with a crystal crocodile, explaining that “the crocodile is the only animal that does not give up.” Not long ago, while traveling from Germany, Putin and his family visited Chisinau one more time. The president's wife (albeit by now ex-wife) Lyudmila Putina enjoyed tasting Moldovan cognacs, and the president's daughters drank wine. The archival books even indicate that the eldest drank “Noir Dionysus” - Burgundy wine, and Putin’s youngest daughter preferred Cahors.

Many of the outstanding world figures of our time, including V.V. Putin, buy racks of wine for themselves, considering this as a good investment - after all, the price of wine from a good harvest grows from year to year and is more stable than any world currency.

V.V.Putin's shelving in the Cricova cellars.

These racks are still waiting for their buyers

There is also a special tasting room in Cricova - Gagarinsky!

The hall was named after the famous guest - cosmonaut N1 Yuri Gagarin, who, while visiting the cellars, even managed to get lost in the Cricova labyrinths. Yuri Gagarin made his mark not just with a short visit, but stayed in the labyrinths of the wine library for a whole day. In the book of honorary visitors to underground wine cellars, his words are quoted: “Entered on the eighth, left on the ninth.” And he also said: “It is more difficult to part with the Cricova cellars than with the Earth.” He was probably right!

In recent years, National Wine Day has been held in Moldova at the beginning of October, and on this occasion, foreign citizens who want to take part in this holiday will even be able to receive free entry visas for 30 days - this decision was made several years ago!

Invitation to a tasting!

Prices for Moldovan wines per glass and per liter. To get the price in dollars, divide by 13, and if you want in Russian rubles, then multiply by 2.5.

I would like to wish all readers, on occasion, to visit here at least once and see everything with their own eyes. Cricova Cellars is a place that will certainly leave a unique mark in the memory of every visitor!

01.05.2014

At different times, the author was lucky enough to visit not only these, but also other equally famous cellars in Moldova. About the wine festival in Chisinau, about tasting, how to choose and how to book an excursion to a particular cellar, and essays about all wine cellars with a lot of photographs and interesting information can be read in the book below:

WINE ROADS OF MOLDOVA

This book could well serve as a guide to the wine cellars of Moldova! Not everyone knows that in Moldova there are huge underground wine cities with roads over 200 km long, names of wine streets flashing in the white light of car headlights, as well as boulevards located under almost 100-meter thick rocks, underground waterfalls and the world's largest collections of wines , one of which was included in the Guinness Book of Records.

By visiting, you will get acquainted with his other works!

Cricova wine storage
In Cricova there are the largest wine cellars in the world, where tourists can drive around the streets of a real underground city of winemakers. The total length of underground streets is more than 100 km. One of the largest collections of vintage wines in the country (more than 3 million decalitres) and spacious tasting rooms are stored here. http://cricova.md/ Video films about the object 1 Video, 2 Video
The Cricova plant is rightfully the pearl of Moldovan winemaking. In the famous limestone adits of Cricova, under the careful care of winemakers, excellent Moldovan wines are stored and aged. White ones are thin, graceful and delicate, red ones are unobtrusively tart, aromatic, slightly assertive. And they are all very tasty and very original, which is confirmed by the rain of international prizes and various awards.
Year after year, skilled winemakers replenish the famous Cricova Wine Library, which stores ancient wines from all over the world. They are priceless. Therefore, visiting the Cricova tasting rooms is not only enjoying the unique aura of the Cricova dungeon, but also a real journey into the land of wines.
All Cricova wines can be tasted in the magnificent tasting rooms, which are true works of exquisite architecture. Over the almost half-century of existence of the Cricova Cellars, representatives from more than 100 countries have visited here.
Along the whitewashed walls lie barrels - large, very large and huge. It smells of wine and dampness: here, at a hundred-meter depth, there is always a constant temperature of 12° and constant humidity of 97%. There are signs on the walls with the names of the tunnels: “Cabernet Street”, “Riesling Street”, “Feteaschi Street”. Cars, buses (as in “The Dungeon” directed by Kusturica) and electric trains travel along these wide, illuminated streets. To neutralize exhaust gases, the streets are fumigated with sulfur every Friday. All communications are made of glass pipes - metals oxidize and affect air quality.
They are especially proud of wines from Goering’s trophy collection. These at auctions cost 20-30 thousand dollars per bottle, and even 100 thousand were offered for a particularly rare Jewish Passover wine, but the Cricova custodians did not sell it - prestige is more expensive.
In the Cricova Wine Library you can rent a kazoo - a storage unit for a private collection. This is exactly what LUKOIL shareholders did. Vagit Alikperov has the largest kaza - one thousand bottles. The rest are more modest - only five hundred. Of course, it would be interesting to know what kind of wines they drink at LUKOIL (Brunello di Montalcino Ugolaia 1997? Toscana Solengo 2001?), but there is a thick layer of dust on the bottles, and you can’t touch them with your hands: the dust protects the wine from light, and if it erase, the taste of the wine may change. The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin and the Metropolitan of All Rus' also have their own collections here. And in general, people pay a lot of money to store the wines selected for the collection in Cricova cellars - this gives the wines value and status!
Cricova is the pearl of the republic, a source of national pride and the heart of Moldovan winemaking. The plant was founded in the mid-twentieth century on the outskirts of Chisinau in the Cricova waste adits for the extraction of shell rock. It is located at a depth of about 100 meters and extends over more than 60 km. To protect this priceless treasure, parliamentarians initiated a draft law to give the plant the status of a national treasure. Now Cricova has essentially been taken under the caring wing of the state and will not be given to anyone.
Part of the Cricova treasury, the wine library contains - no more, no less - 465 types of cognacs, wines and liqueurs. The republican collection of wines is stored in the cellars. It consists of 700 thousand bottles of unique drinks. For example, there is the only bottle of Jerusalem wine in the world from 1902. ***The most famous and oldest exhibit of the Cricova collection, kept under a glass bell, is a bottle of red dessert Jerusalem Passover wine, produced in Palestine in 1902, in a small Jewish community. It's not hard to imagine a Jewish family saving this bottle for a special occasion that never came. They tried to buy the famous bottle from Krikov. At one time, the famous American corn magnate Garst gave $100 thousand for it. The bottle is still in Cricova.
***There is another rarity there - the oldest Czech liqueur “Yan Bekher Liqueur” from the same 1902.
***The collection also contains five bottles of Chateau Mouton Rothschild from the 1936 vintage.
In this area, under your feet, there is a gold reserve of Moldova - somewhere here, at a depth of 80-100 meters, there is a storage facility for liquid gold. This is not oil, this is 40 million liters of selected grape wine from the Cricova region. All this is stored at a depth of 80-100 meters in waste stone adits. And if all this stuff is sold, then the money received is approximately one state budget of Moldova.
This steam that comes out of the ground is not volcanoes, which do not exist in Moldova, it is evidence that life is boiling there in the depths. There are 400 kilometers of adits from which sandstone stone was and is still being mined. The whole of Chisinau is built from it. Wine cellars Cricova occupy 60 kilometers and are not walked on, they are driven by cars. They especially love to carry all sorts of important guests who utter exclamations of admiration.
300-liter barrels hold the best wine. There are also much larger barrels. The standard, the European standard, so to speak, is the 300-liter oak barrels. Now they are empty, which means that their recent contents have already been bottled and even sent to stores, and now in mid-December the barrels are waiting for a new portion of the potion, a new portion of wine materials. And this wine will be aged in them - sometimes for 3 years, sometimes for 5, sometimes even more.
The barrels here are special - made from the best French oak. They are used for vintage wines and very selected ones, the so-called collection ones. They are also very large - the size of a car tank - they make champagne well. Usually it is made using classical technology, but there is also an accelerated process, invented back in Soviet times. Metal tanks are designed for this type of sparkling wine. They are covered with enamel inside. The temperature in the Cricova cellars is 10-14 degrees all year round, ideal for aging wines. Wine material is stored in barrels for at least a year, this is for ordinary table wines. Vintage v is bigger. Reds, “Dionysus” or “Cabernet” for example, take 3 years and then mature in bottles. But collectible Cabernet is aged in bottles for an additional 3 to 30 years.
In the past year, 84 percent of all wine from Cricova was sent to Russia, including a sea of ​​champagne. This is generally a special conversation - champagne. In our country, semi-sweet is traditionally preferred. They also produce this here, but they are more proud of their brut. It is aged in bottles for 3 years, and all this time they work on the champagne. If in France this is done by men, then in Moldova it is entrusted to women. They regularly rotate each bottle 45 degrees so that the sediment is distributed more evenly. One worker turns 40 thousand bottles a day. The workload is very high, and they don’t just hire people from the street for this job—training is necessary first. They train on a bucket of sand. When the champagne is finally ripe, the neck is frozen and the temporary cork is removed, the sediment is removed, a permanent cork is installed and a label is glued. Can be sold. Or give.
People in Cricova know how and love to give. Neither astronauts nor politicians avoided these places. The program of visits of heads of state to Moldova traditionally includes visits to wine cellars. First, everyone is led along the corridors with barrels and bottles, told about the peculiarities of local winemaking, and then, when they can no longer stand it, salivation is vigorously released, the most interesting thing comes. In fact, it’s not even the guests themselves who are waiting for this interesting thing, but their retinue. Tasting. Therefore, everyone tries to get into the retinue. According to local workers, they counted 68 cars in the Russian Prime Minister's motorcade. Guests are offered a modest appetizer; especially important persons are given delicacies from the presidential kitchen in advance. But the most important thing is a bottle of branded champagne, the main gift. It holds 6 liters and is certainly equipped with a label with a photo. The guests are very happy.
Now it’s clear what kind of champagne will be on festive table Russian and foreign politicians. Here behind bars there are reserves of liquid gold in a form convenient for consumption, v 0.75 each. There are things that are completely unique. With such liquidity reserves, the country is not afraid of financial crises. A year's stay here increases the cost of one bottle of wine by 30 percent. In total, the collection includes 1.2 million wines from 160 brands. It contains both simply old European wines from famous French, Italian, and Spanish wineries, and completely unique rarities with an extraordinary history of origin. The management of the plant proudly declares that it is not difficult to obtain almost any loan from the IMF or any other reputable financial organization for the wines stored with them, because this liquid wealth can be a collateral no worse than gold.
One of the three underground wine storage facilities in the world protected by UNESCO, as well as the only producer in Moldova of sparkling wines prepared using the classic “Champenoise” method, “Cricova” is a unique enterprise with unprecedented capabilities.
It is known that every second bottle of wine produced in the former Soviet Union was produced in Moldova, or according to Moldovan recipes and traditions. In addition, before the First World War, Moldova was the most powerful wine producer of the Russian Empire. About a century ago, materials for the preparation of sparkling wines were imported from Moldova to many countries, including France.
“Cricova” specialists, keeping in mind the history and traditions of Moldovan winemaking, create only those wines that are worthy of your attention. Here you can also buy “Cricova” wines as a souvenir.
The tasting package “On the Road” includes: an excursion, tasting of white and red wine from the “PRESTIGE” series, an appetizer to accompany the wine. The trip through the cellars is carried out by electric train (capacity 20 seats).
The enterprise was initially conceived for the production of sparkling and vintage wines, but later the plant began to produce a much wider range - in addition to sparkling wines, it produces ordinary and vintage wines. grape wines.
Today, the Cricova plant produces many types of high-quality red and white wines produced using original technologies, including 15 brands of champagne and sparkling wines. The Cricova Factory is the only enterprise in the Republic that produces champagne using the French classic method of bottle fermentation with aging for up to three years.
"Goering Collection"
The basis of the “European collection” of the famous wine library was the so-called “Goering collection”. The diaries of the chief architect and intendant of the Reich, Albert Speer, contain memories of a summer evening he spent at Goering's house, where they tasted the best vintages of Chateau Lafite. Goering was a fan of Bordeaux, but in addition to them, elite Mosel, Rhine, Burgundy, Portuguese ports and other wines dating from the first half of the 20th century, a total of 10 thousand bottles, were found in his cellar. Goering's wine collection was exported to the USSR after the war and ended up in Cricova..
Celebrity guests
During the Soviet era, the wine library was shown only to big bosses and selected celebrities; mere mortals were not allowed to enter here. Politicians, party bosses, pop stars and leaders of international organizations were received here. Zian ZeMin, Chirac, Kwasniewski, Iliescu, Brezhnev, Gorbachev - all visited here. In Soviet times, they liked to shoot documentaries here about the presentation of some imperial or magnum to the next leader of a country friendly to the Union. About Yuri Gagarin's visit in 1966:
Visit the second largest, after Small Milesti, storage facility - Cricova - we continue the series of notes about the most significant wine collections in the world. – Just don’t get lost in its labyrinths! As it happened with Yuri Gagarin, who was rescued from underground galleries back in 1966 only a day later. “It was easier for me to tear myself away from the Earth than to leave the Cricova dungeon,” said, according to the curators of the famous wine library, the first cosmonaut of the planet.
Vladimir Putin celebrated his 50th birthday here in 2002. (Leaders of states generally like to visit such places. And in such places they like to receive leaders of states - after the GDP visited Chateau Cheval Blanc in 2005, prices for farm products went through the roof. The media has not yet reported on the rise in prices for Cricov’s products, but the fact that this wine is popular among the people is a fact. And besides, it is successfully supplied to almost all countries of the world.)

10 out of 10 tours around Moldova include visits to wine cellars, and in total more than 50 wineries and tasting rooms are registered in our country. At the height of the tourist season, Locals has compiled a guide to the main wine galleries that are worth taking your foreign friends to, and where it would be nice to go yourself.

Cricova

Cricova Cellars is the first thing many tour operators suggest when they mention wine tours. They say that the most impressive excursions are here - the so-called underground wine city has done its job. There are 6 excursion packages available here, which, in addition to visiting the underground vaults, include a wine tasting, a snack menu and signature souvenirs.

Where: Cricova

Price: 250-1300 lei/person. or 350-1450 lei/person, depending on the package and the inclusion of a souvenir. After 16:00 on weekdays, weekends and holidays, the price of any package increases by an average of 100 lei.

Duration: 1-3 hours, depending on the tour.

Mileştii mici

The largest number of enotours can be found at the Mileştii mici plant, which, by the way, is included in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest collection of wines in Europe - about 2 million. 16 tourist programs include a tour of the wine storage, tasting, snacks (including vegetarian ) and a souvenir bottle of wine. The tour is carried out on the client's transport (one seat for the guide is required in the car), the height of the car should not exceed 2.7 m.

Where: Ialoveni

Price: Depending on the excursion program, the price of the tour varies from 200 to 1500 lei/person. on weekdays from 9:00-17:00. On weekends or weekdays after 17:00, the minimum price of the tour is 300 lei, the maximum is 1650.

Duration: 40 min – 2.5 hours, depending on the selected package.

Purcari

Purcari cellars are considered the oldest wine galleries in Moldova - the winery was founded in 1827. Several excursion programs include a visit to the industrial part of the plant (workshops, bottling line), the historical part (cellar), inspection of the wine collection, tasting and souvenir. Transfer Chisinau-Purcari is paid additionally, as are translation services if the excursion is not in Russian or Romanian.

Where: With. Purcari, district Stefan Voda

Price: 7-39 euros/person, depending on the program and inclusion of a souvenir in the price.

Duration: 1.5-2 hours, depending on the program.

Chateau Vartely

The tour includes a visit to the entire complex, its industrial part and the entertainment area. Excursions with wine tasting are held from Monday to Sunday according to the schedule: 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, 17:00, 19:00. By the way, along with tasting local wines, you can also order a tasting of wines from world producers - to compare, so to speak.

Where: Orhei

Price: Depending on the number of people in the group and the tasting package, the price varies from 75 to 440 lei/person. An excursion without tasting can cost the whole group from 100 to 350 lei, depending on its occupancy.

Duration: 1-2 hours

Cojuşna

The excursion is standard: a tour of wine cellars and a visit to two tasting rooms. The cellars themselves are not particularly large, but it’s worth a trip - only 15 km from Chisinau.

Where: With. Cojusna, Straseni district

Price: A tour without tasting will cost you 10-15 euros/person, depending on the number of people in the group. Excursion + tasting will cost from 20 to 30 euros per person on a weekday, and 35-45 euros on weekends.

Duration: 1-2 hours

Contacts: 022 596 101

Branesti

The Branesti cellars are located underground at a depth of 60 m, cover an area of ​​75 hectares and have a total length of 58 km. In addition to visiting the wine cellar, the tours include a visit to two tasting rooms, one of which is located directly underground.

Where: c. Branesti

Price: On weekdays, an excursion will cost you 10-12 euros/person, an excursion with tasting - 20-45 euros. On weekends, the same positions will cost 15-18 euros/person and 30-68 euros, respectively. Transport is paid separately - 25-100 euros, depending on the number of people in the group.

Duration: 40 min-2 hours

Contacts: 022 430 035

Moldova has always been very closely associated with wine, so when in this country, it is impossible not to visit the underground wine city, which is talked about so much - a real pearl of Moldavian winemaking. Still, “In vino veritas.”

How to get to Cricova: Bus no. 2 and 47 (two blocks down from Stefan cel Mare Blvd. along Vasile Alexandri Street); the duration of the journey is 40 minutes, in Cricova they will already tell you where to go next; fare - 4.50 lei, taxi: journey duration - 15-25 minutes (depending on traffic on the roads), fare 60-100 lei

In Cricova there is different types excursions: simple, with tastings, with gifts, etc., you can study in more detail on the website http://cricovavin.md/ru. You can find out the time of a particular excursion and book it through the website or in Chisinau at the company store at st. A. Shchuseva 96, 1st floor, and at the same time you can buy specialty drinks there, which is what I did. I chose the simplest one without tasting for 155 Moldovan lei, it starts at 9 am.

At the designated time, this electric car came for us, and we drove into the dungeon. In the cellars, natural limestone helps maintain a constant temperature - 12-14 degrees and a humidity of 97-98% - optimal conditions for aging fine wines of the highest quality category, but driving at such a temperature in an open electric car is a bit cold, especially when turning, when it gets very windy. Therefore, when going to the Cricova cellars, take something warm.

The Cricova cellars are former building stone mines, resulting from the historical mining activities of the area. Many buildings in Cricova, Chisinau, Balti and other cities of the Republic of Moldova were built from limestone, which was mined here. Some branches of the excavation are still in operation, so this huge underground city continues to grow. The plant was founded by the famous Soviet wine specialist Petr Ungureanu in 1952. With the stated 120 kilometers of underground corridors and tunnels, only three have been prepared for the tourist route, the rest are workshops, production premises etc.

Cricova is a real underground city with its avenues and streets, which are named after the brands of wines that are stored in the niche of this street: Cabernet, Riesling, Feteasca, Aligote, Sauvignon, Dionysus.

Along the wine streets along the whitewashed walls there are large barrels...

And huge

Each barrel has a metal plate with the emblem of the plant and a piece of paper with all the data on the ripening wine.

We were shown the sparkling champagne production workshop and the whole process. The wine is poured into glass bottles, yeast and sugar are added. Bottles are placed on special shelves at a slight angle. Yeast forms sediment in the bottle. From time to time, the bottles are turned around their axis at a certain angle so that the sediment slowly descends to the neck. They say that this work is trusted only to women and only by hand. It's a special profession to turn over bottles. The process of turning bottles is called remuage. By the end of this period, the sediment from the yeast goes down to the cork itself. The bottles are placed in a special machine in which the neck is frozen, the cap is removed and the frozen sediment is removed. Clear sparkling wine remains in the bottle. The bottle is capped and a wire mesh is put on.

Special attention should be paid to the exhibition of winemaking development. The museum contains numerous exhibits telling about the history of viticulture and winemaking.

The cellars of the Cricova wine library are carved in the shape of a huge glass. Kazys are hollowed out in the thickness of the porous stone - alcoves for bottles. The wine library in Cricova is huge - 1.2 million bottles of 658 items. It is believed that this is the largest collection in Europe.

Among its first exhibits are wines from the collection of Hermann Goering. Nazi No. 2 understood painting, loved beautiful women and knew a lot about good wines. His amazing collection is war trophy from World War II.

I also found the collection of Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin here.

The wine library also has unique exhibits. For example, a crystal bottle of red "Easter Jerusalem"

and liqueur "Ian Becher" 1902 - the only ones in the world.

Photos of famous people - politicians, businessmen, actors who rent storage units here to store their collections.

Of course, such a storage facility cannot but have a tasting room. The tasting rooms of Cricova are united into a single complex and are unique in that they are located underground. The tasting complex includes several large halls, different in style and designed for different numbers of guests. Here are a few of them:

In 1966, in the hospitable galleries of Cricova, Yuri Gagarin got lost for a day. Having escaped from the dungeon, the world's first cosmonaut admitted: it was easier for him to break away from the Earth than to leave the Cricova cellars.

Having visited the underground cellars of Cricova, you will definitely not regret the time spent!