The first "Frâncuşă" of Cotnari of the year 2010 leaves the winemaker"s barrels

The Cotnari "Frâncuşa" - the first wine of the year - left on its way to the bottles, young and brisk, as usual, after just one month spent in the barrels. The winemaker will present tomorrow, for the fifth year in a row, the first bottles of this year"s "Frâncuşa" harvest.

Cătălin Grecu, marketing director for the company "Cotnari", said that the current year was very difficult for the Romanian winemaking sector. However, the plantations of "Cotnari" suffered small damage, in spite of the -25° Celsius temperatures of last winter. Cătălin Grecu said that "spring had a few days of scorching heat and excessive rain, in May, which created conditions for the appearance of downy mildew in vine plantations. Summer began with similarly abundant rainfall, far above the average of last year. The dry days of June and July had very high temperatures and thus created the conditions for the attack of the powdery mildew. We managed to administer all the treatments for the 1,300 hectares of productive vine and the 400 hectares of vine plantations on time to fight against the downy and powdery mildew".

The output of the "Cotnari" varies from 7-8 tons/hectare, for the "Grasa de Cotnari" and "Tămâioasă Românească" varieties, to 9-10 tons/hectare, for the "Feteasca Albă" and "Frâncuşa de Cotnari".

Costs per hectare of productive vine have increased 10% compared to the past years. The meteorological conditions of this year - rain and heat - have however encouraged a better growth of the grapes, which will eventually lead to an increased output per hectare.

"In the case of the varieties which had a surplus, in particular < Grasa de Cotnari > and < Tămâioasa Românească >, in the beginning of August we gave up on some of the crop, to encourage greater accumulation of sugar for the grapes that would be left on the trunk", said Cătălin Grecu. Due to the rains during the harvest season, this year"s output dropped to 10 million kilos of grapes, compared to 11 million kilos of grapes in 2009.

"Cotnari" will continue to have promotions, special packages and offers, with all these actions leading to a significant decrease in the price of products (by approximately 20-25%)", the company"s marketing director said.

Discussing the wine market, he said that over the past few years, the quality of Romanian wines has increased steadily, as proven by the good results that they have obtained at the International Wine Contests.

These past few years, "Cotnari" has won over 125 gold medals and 2 Great Gold Medals. Cătălin Grecu considers that "wine makers should stick together, regardless of their size, just like brewers do. A joint strategy for the advertising of Romanian wines should also be developed, both domestically and abroad. This would allow them to lower their individual advertising costs and would help improve the image of the Romanian-made wines".