Mihail Rotenberg: "The 2010 winemaking year was worthless"

Maker of high-class wines "Rotenberg" "skipped last year"s harvest", according to Mihail Rotenberg, the owner of the wine caves of Ceptura: "The 2010 viticultural year was worthless. Because of rain, of the weather conditions, and of various other factors, the wines came out too strong, with too much alcohol and we only produced two types of rosé wines - < Rapsod > and < Rotenberg >".

This year wasn"t that great either, according to Rotenberg, who said that the crop of 2011 was "rather weak": "We picked the grapes very quickly, trying to make wines with lower alcohol content, of about 13 degrees. Alcohol offends the smell and masks the quality".

The owner of the "Rotenberg" wine cellar said that this autumn, the harvest was about four tons of grapes/hectare: "We are usually looking to obtain five tons of grapes, and in the good years we succeed in getting as much as 8 tons of grapes per hectare".

• High class wines sell better in hypermarket chains than in specialized stores

High quality wines, which are usually sold in the HoReCa sector (hotels, restaurants, catering), are far more successful in hypermarkets than in specialized stores, said Mihail Rotenberg. He said that, beginning in 2011, the high class "Rotenberg" wines can also be found on the shelves of hypermarkets such as "Carrefour", "Metro" or "Mega Image": "Our clientele, essentially middle-class people, make their own purchases and don"t have the time to go to the specialized wine stores. They buy from hypermarket chains, and the wines that we make are extremely sought after in the retail sector. We sold more wine in < Metro > than we did in specialized stores".

Most of the wines made by the "Rotenberg" wine cellars are sold on the domestic market; the only country that Rotenberg exports to is France.

• On Saturday, "Rotenberg" launched two top wines

On Saturday, "Rotenberg" launched the "Clasic" and "Primus" premium wines, which are targeting collectors in particular. According to the owner of the Ceptura wine cellar, they will go on sale by the end of the year at a price of approximately 90 lei. Made in 2008, "< Primus > wants to be a reprise of < Merlot Cramele Rotenberg 2006 > - an elegant and balanced wine, with flavors of vanilla and ripe cherries and with vegetal and spice tones, which was deemed the best < Merlot > in Romania, by an international jury in the field", Mr. Rotenberg said.

At the end of last week, Mihail Rotenberg officially inaugurated the mansion of the wine cellar which has two wine tasting rooms.

Mihail Rotenberg owns about 25 hectares of "Merlot" grapes, situated on the Dealu Mare vineyard, in the county of Prahova. He said that making wine is a hobby of his, not a business which he is looking to make a profit out of.