This is another wine I’m revisiting from before the website redesign. In case I didn’t drive the point about Romanian wine home with my last blog, allow me to summarize my feelings: for the price, these wines are so good it should be criminal. Sure, it looks like they stole the label design from your grandmother’s dining room wallpaper, but that’s not why you’re buying it. I started drinking Romanian wine because it was cheap and not Two-Buck Chuck; I wanted something that wasn’t mass produced and had a sense of character, I hoped wine from lesser known wine producing regions might give me what I was looking for. So far, I haven’t been disappointed.
My usual sources don’t have a lot of information about Romanian wine regions, but as far as I can tell this wine comes from the district of Murfarlar in the region of Dobrogea, SE Romania. In this case, Murfatlar is the name of both the winery that produces the wine and the wine district it was produced in. That would be like having a Bordeaux from Bordeaux Winery, this is the kind of thing that makes wine so confusing sometimes.
Murfatlar, the winery, is largest producer in the area and their Zestrea label is probably the Romanian wine I have encountered the most on store shelves, it’s also the least expensive wine I’ve found from that region, usually $4-6 per bottle. According to their website, the winery’s location between the Danube and the Black Sea provides geographical barriers that protect it from the cold experienced further north and allows them to produce a wide variety of grapes. Indeed, I was surprised to discover exactly how much wine they produce, of their fourteen lines of wine I have only ever encountered two: Zestrea and Trei Hectare.
The website has a decent amount of information on the winery and wines they produce. It has a standard layout, which makes it easy to navigate compared to the past few winery websites I’ve visited, but, like the label, the design seems antiquated, and what’s with that music? A mashup of harp, drums, and piano, it’s somehow soothing and jarring at the same time. This is the only winery website I’ve ever visited with music.
The wine had a good balance of acidity and grapefruit flavors with notes of honey. It’s well-structured, but unremarkable. However, for this price this is a great find. This would be a great choice for a casual weeknight dinner, or really any situation where the wine isn’t intended to be the centerpiece.
If you’re looking to check out Romanian, or Murfatlar, wine, I wouldn’t steer you toward this Muscat Ottonel as a first choice. My primary reason for buying this particular wine was because it’s an uncommon grape and I always see that as a learning experience. I’ve had much better luck with the Fetească grapes and think they usually do a great job demonstrating what Romanian wine is capable of achieving. If you’ve had a chance to try this or any of the others, let me know what you think in the comments below.