Last weekend we attended a great gourmet festival in Bucharest, Revino Gourmet Show. It was truly wonderful to (re)discover wine and cheese producers from my home country and I enjoyed a lot talking to the people behind the labels. The event was hosted by Alina Iancu, a dedicated soul to high quality Romanian delicacies.
Alina and I met in 2016 and I was lucky enough to exhibit Pointer Wine Glass at the Revino Wine Fair 2017 edition. In the meantime, we kept in touch and as she entered the Romanian cheese and delicacies world, I kept on ordering her packages during my visits in Romania.
I spent one day at Revino Gourmet and I started by attending an amazing masterclass on cheese and sparkling wine pairing, hosted by Alina herself and Olimpia Plesa Brandhuber.
Romanian Sparkling next to Romanian Cheese
During the masterclass we tasted 5 different sparkling wines, all from Romania, all made following the champenoise method, paired with 4 cheeses from Romanian producers and some caviar as surprise. I enjoyed the masterclass a lot and i tried every wine with every cheese, to discover no-gos and to challenge my taste buds. It was particularly interesting for me given the current structure of the wine tastings I organise in Berlin, where cheese pairing is also included.
Image source: Revino.ro
The 5 proposed pairings were:
- Muse Stars Recas with Branza „La Ferma“ de Burduf
- Stirbey Cramposie Selectionata (yes, the exact same amazing sparkling wine you can find in our online shop and taste at our wine tasting events) with Romanian Camembert style cheese from Timian
- Award winning Carassia Rosé Magnum Bottle with Tekeroi Matured Cheese (+6 months)
- Kotys Millesime Petro Vaselo with Karpaten Milk Truffle cheese
- Award winning Carassia 773 Vintage 2018 (not on the market yet, so still without labels) + Caviar
We enjoyed every minute of this tasting and the game our hosts played between the cheese and sparkling styles. If based in Romania or simply visiting, we highly recommend the events organised by Alina and all the products we tried during this session.
Image source: Revino.ro
New wine discoveries
The day continued with about 30 other wine samples and at least the same amount of excellent cheeses, salami and other delicacies. We discovered a few new wines, focusing of course on local varieties. Here they are, in the order we tasted them:
- Catleya Epopée Alb 2021 - Feteasca regala (70%) and Feteasca alba (30%) - dry white
- Catleya Marcel et le Prince - 2020 Feteasca Neagra (100%) - not available yet in stores (wink wink) - dry red
- Crama Girboiu Bacanta Special Edition - 2021 Sarba (100%) - dry white
- Crama Girboiu Bacanta Feteasca Neagra - 2017 Feteasca Neagra (100%) - dry red
- Busuioaca de Averesti Diamond Junior - 2019 Busuioaca de Averesti (100%) dry rosé
- Zghihara de Averesti Diamond Junior - 2019 Zghihara (100%) - dry white