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Published: October 20th 2007
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Half eight in the morning we dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready as best as possible in that tiny room. A Scottish guy called Chris had arrived in the middle of the night and this morning we found out that he had no money because his cards had been rejected like ours. He had tried so many ATM's that his card had been cancelled. We didn't have much time to chat but we gave him the equivalent of £5 to keep him on his feet. At quarter past nine our guide Val arrived to take us to Milesti Mici.
The drive to the winery allowed us to see the fantastic scenery that lies just a few kilometers from the centre of Chisinau. Unfortunately we couldn't take any pictures from the car window so we just have to remember for next time. When we began to approach Milesti Mici there were fields and fields of vines as far as the eye could see.
We arrived at Milesti Mici a bit too early and so went to look around the shop/museum. Val talked with us about everything from The Beatles to how best to enjoy Moldova. Inside the grounds
Not the Greatest Picture
We can't all be photogenic there are two big fountains Willy Wonka style. One is a fountain of red wine and the other of white.
The tour is rather unusual because to properly access the 200km of underground cellars you need to drive around it. There were a few other cars going on our tour, a group of rich footballer’s wife types with a procession of black cars with black windows and an older man with his son from the south of England. To get into the underground bit they swing open two massive wooden gates which only added to the feel of entering Wonka's Chocolate factory. We drove a long way into the labyrinth of cellars and passed road names like Riesling Street and Pinot Street. Massive barrels were in every alcove available and everywhere you looked there was another street with even more barrels.
The golden collection is located at the very bottom of the complex. We arrived there and got out to have a look. The Milesti Mici tour guide told us plenty of interesting things about the storage process of the wine and also pointed out the oldest wines in their collection. None of the wines are labeled they
are just stored in alcoves which have a plaque with the date the wine is made, the date it was bottled and the area the grape came from. We looked at so many different alcoves but we couldn't see any made in 1985. We found plenty from 1984 and 1986 but none from 1985.
Milesti Mici holds the 2005 Guinness world record for the largest collection of wine of 1.5 million bottles. Since 2005, the collection has grown to over 2 million bottles. Up until now they haven't produced the wine themselves, but they have planted their first grape vines which are to be harvested in two years time. Obviously the wine won't be available for many years because they have a reputation to uphold.
On the way to the next sight, we passed a lot of Babushkas painting the bottom of the caves white. They waved and shouted at the cars and they fit perfectly into the role of oompa lumpas.
We saw a few other sights inside the cellars. We went to the champagne section where we were showed how the bottles are stored at an angle so that the yeast stays in the neck
of the bottle. Once a day the bottles were rotated by 45° to keep the yeast from settling. Interestingly the way they remove the yeast entirely is by freezing the neck of the bottle and taking it out frozen.
The tasting part of the cellars was beautiful and we were shown a series of sculptures that jokingly portrayed how wine was first discovered. To get into the "posh" tasting rooms you pull a handle and the gigantic barrels open to let you in. We only got a peek inside before we were shown to our tasting table.
We had three little barrels of wine and some snacks on a table for us to help ourselves to. We had one red cabernet sauvignon one white chardonnay and some sweet white wine. We stood and chatted to Val whilst we drank which was a lot of fun because he has traveled plenty. We had the cheapest excursion and were having a fun time. We looked over at the English man and his son that had the next excursion up and they were sitting eating and drinking but were not really talking or looked to be overly enjoying themselves. The party
of rich people had of course taken the full package with seven different wines and a three course meal, but when we looked in they were eating in silence. We had enough to drink and so left the other groups to it. Back at the shop we bought a few bottles of slightly special wine and then headed home.
At the hostel everyone was up, so we chatted to them about the trip. Chris and Jay are planning to stay for the wine festival. We have decided to leave as planned as we don't want to wait two days for the festival even though it does look like it will be good.
Despite being slightly on the merry side, we decided not to waste the afternoon. The national history museum sounded rather good, so we decided to waste the afternoon there. It didn't have much English there but didn’t really have much Romanian either. Most of the exhibits were pretty dull, just your average museum articles eg. Pot, old tools etc. Some of the better exhibits included a massive panorama of the battle of Chisinau.
From the museum we decided to go see some of the sights
Sparkling Wine
The wine is turned every day by 45 degrees and the white line helps...although i don't know why they aren't pointing in the same direction? that were in the Lonely Planet. These were the parliamentary building, the presidential palace and the opera house. One new addition to our look up later notebook is; does the president of Moldova really live in the presidential palace because it has more in common with high rise blocks than a palace.
Back at the hostel everyone was hanging around and a new guy from Switzerland had arrived called Marco. We spent quite a while chatting whilst alternating turns in the bathroom.
We decided that it would be nice to chill out in a cinema and watch a film, so we headed to the one we knew. We asked the cashier whether the film rush hour 3 was in English and in a way not too dissimilar from the Ukrainians she gave us a look of disgust and turned away. After attempting to make ourselves understood and realising she was ignoring us we opted for a meal in a recommended restaurant instead.
We went to Greenways which was a pleasant and cheap place. We had only just ordered our meal when four people from the hostel walked in, so they joined us. Scottish Chris, American Chris, Swiss
Marco and a slightly annoying American man called Jay. The meal was lovely and it was great to be able to have big discussions with such a variety of people.
After the meal most people opted for an early night but it was still too early for us, so we went to find a club called the Black Elephant. We failed miserably and ended up Back at good old Autobus. Rob had been intrigued earlier by something on the menu that translated as Chocolate Corona, so he ordered that and I randomly picked something else. Turns Chocolate Corona is a bar of chocolate and my choice was whipped cream with chocolate sprinkles on top. Not the best choice of desserts in the world. To finish we both had some brandy which is made here in Moldova. I rather liked mine, but Rob left most of his. It is a good job we didn't opt for the brandy tasting tour of Transdniestr.
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kate
non-member comment
born in a storm
The lack of wine in 1985 can be explained easily. As there was a storm here on a special day in August so there must have been storms all over Europe as a welcome to you, Steph. Bad weather equals no grapes!! Love Mumxxxxxxxx