Château Purcari

Tasted blind in Paris

Paris, eighteen seventy-eight. At the Universal Exhibition, judges taste a dark red, dry wine blind. They agree: this must be a Bordeaux. They are wrong. The wine comes from a small village on the Dniester, in the south-east of what was then called Bessarabia. Its name is Negru de Purcari, and it wins a gold medal. To the outside world, it is a surprise. For Purcari, it is the start of a reputation.

A decree from the tsar

By then the estate was just over half a century old. In eighteen twenty-seven, a decree from Tsar Nicholas the First made Purcari the first specialist winery in Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire. Bessarabia had joined that empire in eighteen twelve, and winegrowing in the new province expanded quickly. The cellars date from that time too, and old vintages of the house still lie there today.

Between river and sea

Purcari lies in the Ștefan Vodă district, on the hills above the Dniester. The Ukrainian border is a few kilometres away, and the Black Sea about sixty kilometres. That sea softens the climate. The slopes lie at about a hundred and twenty to a hundred and sixty metres above sea level. The vineyards cover several hundred hectares and supply the grapes for the wines that made the house famous.

Three grapes in one bottle

Negru de Purcari is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Saperavi and the native Rară Neagră. It ages for years in oak. Locally it is known as the wine of the Queen of England, because, so the story goes, Elizabeth the Second ordered it regularly. Since twenty eleven, the house has also made the Freedom Blend, with grapes from Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, three former Soviet republics. The blend was created to mark twenty years of freedom since the end of the Soviet Union.

A second life

In the Soviet era, Purcari lost its independence. Only in two thousand and three did the estate get a fresh start. The old cellars were renovated, and the historic blends returned. Around Purcari grew a wine group with houses in Moldova and Romania. In twenty twenty-five, the Polish company Maspex became its majority shareholder. Today visitors can stay in chalets, eat in the restaurant, where Moldovan classics such as plăcinte and zeamă are on the menu, and tour the cellars with a guide.

A name that stayed

Purcari has survived shifting borders and a century of change. What remained is a name on a label and a wine that still points to the same village. The cellars from eighteen twenty-seven are still in use. Almost two centuries after the tsar's decree, Negru de Purcari is back on the wine lists. The Paris jury got the origin wrong. About the quality, it was right.