It managed to pull of a difficult feat, you see. It is well known in winemaking terms that, of all the red wine grapes, Pinot Noir is probably the haughtiest. It is very picky about where you plant it and then gives you hell as you cultivate it each year. Basically if you aren’t in Burgundy it’s not the slightest bit interested… unless you are in Romania.

Romanian Pinot Noir isn’t the finest in the world (because that comes from Burgundy, obviously. Just ask the French.) but it is very competent and very reasonably priced.

.So although they have the full palate of serviceable grapes there, Pinot is ’The Story’.

Even if you do manage to get people interested in any of the other wines here, there are cliché just waiting to catch you. “So this Merlot comes from Târnave… and that’s, where?… an area in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains… Oh… in the part of the country they call Transylvania… so Dracula drinks this then?”