Back in 1988, three families decided to invest in a winery in Romania, starting with 650 hectares of slightly unloved vineyards and a rusty, once state-owned winery.

Yet Englishman Philip Cox and his Romanian wife Elvira, have turned the Cramele Recas Estate into the most successful winery in Romania. Recas are now recognised globally for their impressive scale and breadth of fascinating wines, including natural and orange wine from organic grapes. Despite the scale the emphasis is on making good wines that over-deliver, and as a result they’ve struck on a magic formula that has seen sales and demand boom. Vineyards are a combination of evolved plantings from 1447 and more recent planting, whilst the winery has seen significant investment and boasts state of the art facilities where innovation thrives. Recas are in every way a modern, dynamic winery, whose open minded approach and quality sets them apart … a winery you really can’t ignore.

Riesling and indigenous grapes are harvested early in the season to ensure a lighter fresher style of wine, the estate grown grapes were harvested early in the morning, where cooler temperatures help to preserve the pure fruit flavour and acidity.

The grapes were lightly crushed and then cooled to 8° C before gentle pressing in state of the art vacuum press. Free run juice is separated and moved into temperature controlled tanks for 2-3 days, until perfectly clear and bright. The juice is then transferred to stainless steel fermenters, where selected yeast begin the cool, long fermentation (3 weeks at 10°C). The wine is kept on fine lees until bottling for added palate weight and texture.