A Talk With Stefan Iamandi, Director, Wine Of Moldova

By love-europe
6 hours Ago

A Talk With Stefan Iamandi, Director, Wine Of Moldova

Stefan Iamandi, director of the National Office of Vine and Wine / Wine of Moldova, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

There’s a good chance that Moldova is the world’s most wine-dependent country, not in the sense of drinking, of course, but in the sense that the wine sector is very important for the country. In relation to the size of the country, its economy and its population, wine is a very important source of income. The sector is managed by an organization called ONVV, The National Office of Vine and Wine, also called Wine of Moldova. Since late 2023, the head of the ONVV is Stefan Iamandi. Stefan was in Paris a little while back, and we met over dinner. But before enjoying some classic French food I took the opportunity to ask him what’s happened lately in the wine sector in Moldova since it’s a country I know well and that has been undergoing dramatic changes since the disappearance of the Soviet Union.

I was particularly interested to hear about recent developments since a few years ago, I did an in-depth analysis of the wine business in Moldova and looked at some of its strengths and weaknesses. One very exciting thing about Moldovan wine, as I concluded then, is the wealth of local and quite unique grape varieties (sometimes shared with neighbouring countries). But at the time, they only represented a relatively small part of the planted acreage. One of the weaknesses I saw was that the wine business was dominated by a small number of very big producers. There were not many small to medium-sized wineries. It was lacking a “new generation” of family wineries which are needed to push the sector forward for quality, innovation and market orientation. In Soviet times they were a big supplier of bulk wine but were slowly transitioning to a quality-oriented wine production. I was keen to know what had changed. And I was not disappointed.

The landscape at Chateau Purcari, Stefan Voda, Moldova, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

But when I asked about what’s changed, perhaps not surprisingly, the first thing Stefan Iamandi pointed to was the changes brought on by Covid and by the war in Ukraine. In the east, Moldova has Ukraine as a neighbour (Romania to the west) so the impact of the war is very concrete by the proximity. Not only that, a small slice of eastern Moldova bordering Ukraine, called Transdniestria, is a rebellious province that wants to be independent, supported by the Russians. As Stefan explained, “We were exporting the wines through the port in Odessa, and this affected the wine sector, not just the wine sector.” Today, exporting through Odessa is hardly possible. The Russian invasion has not reached Odesa, an important port on the Black Sea, but it is not far from it.

Listen to the full interview in this video:

On the wine side, Stefan was much more positive, saying that they have made huge progress in quality but also in developing the sector: “We see an increase in the number of small producers in Moldova. And not just the number of producers, but also an increase in the number of medals that the wine producers receive. The share of medals that the small wine producers are receiving is increasing. For example, at Mundus Vini this year, we were the most awarded country from eastern Europe. This has a huge impact on us because we are competing, of course, all around the world, but, first of all, we are competing with the wineries, the wine countries from the east of Europe. In the last years, we have had 6,500 medals in international competitions, and of those, more than 50 per cent are gold medals.”

The Atu Winery near Chisinau, Moldova, one of the medium-size family-owned wineries, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

From having been just a handful of small to medium-sized producers, there is now some 50 or 60 wineries of that size, meaning that it is a significant number for the country, “In fact, if you take the share from the total, it’s almost 30 per cent of all our wineries that are small producers.” Another peculiarity of the wine sector in Moldova is that it may be that they only have some 230 wine-producing wineries for some 100,000 hectares of wine. (Compare that to Bordeaux, which is just slightly bigger but where there are some 6000 wineries.) But on the agricultural side, the cultivation of the vines and the vineyards, there are some 55,000 vine-growing families. It is extremely fragmented, with very many small holdings.

This fragmentation is due to the history of Moldova having been a Soviet republic and what happened with the land when it became an independent country. This leads to some challenges, for example, keeping up with modern techniques and technology in agriculture. But it also has some advantages. It means that almost everyone in the country is in some way or another involved with or related to wine.

The vineyards at the Et Cetera winery, Moldova, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

So, has this increase in small and medium producers made any difference for the wine sector then? Stefan Iamandi thinks so, “The small producers, they’re bringing innovation, they’re following trends, for example, orange wine, with skin contact, they’re following the trend regarding sparkling wine. There are a lot of small producers that produce sparkling wine; we follow the trends that sparkling wine consumption is increasing in the world. And also we produce rosé wine. You know, five years ago, consumption was more of red wine. Now it’s changed to white wine. And for the small producers it’s good in a way; it’s easier to follow the trends and to be more proactive and follow new consumption trends around the world.”

So, it seems that one of the conclusions that I drew when I travelled around Moldova before Covid of how to make the wine industry more dynamic in the country is happening. There’s a great number of smaller producers emerging.

What about the other thing that I noted, the exciting local grapes? At the time, they were not so much planted as they deserved. Is there an increasing interest in indigenous varieties? Well, that is changing too, according to Stefan, “Yes, it’s developed with support from the state, through the subsidies policy. It is promoting the planting of the local varieties, which are, for example, feteasca alba, feteasca neagra, the local varieties, and also the varieties that are selected new varieties. The state is supporting through financial support for that. And it’s true that a big share of the medals we receive are for our indigenous varieties. The surface is not as big as the European ones, for sure. We need to take into consideration our history. In the past, the biggest surface was for the international varieties.” Stefan should know; my guess is that he, or rather, the ONVV, is one source of the funding for this.

Carpe Diem Feteasca Alba and Feteasca Regala, Moldova, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

But the international varieties have not disappeared. “The wineries are doing assemblage (blending) or local varieties with international varieties. And here’s that, here we see a potential for presenting our wines, our terroir through this assemblage of local varieties with international varieties,” says Stefan.

It seems then, that two of my main conclusions on what needed to change when travelling in the Moldovan wine regions some 5-6 years ago are indeed happening.

Looking back, the management of the Moldovan wine sector has gone through a period of turbulence. For many years, Gheorghe Arpentin was director of the ONVV, up until 2020. He was at the same time a visionary, a scientist and a businessman. During his tenure, he established a strategy for the future of the wine business in Moldova based on a better understanding of the market, better research and education, and better management of the vineyards. Now, after a few years of uncertainty, the ONVV (Wine of Moldova) has a new director, Stefan Iamandi, in office since the end of 2023, who, in spite of his young age, is somewhat a veteran of the Moldovan wine management at ONVV, having been in the organisation for many years. His arrival at the helm was followed by the organisation choosing a new motto, or as one would perhaps say on social media, a new tagline. Why so? As Stefan explains, “We came this year with a new motto for the wines of Moldova. We call it ‘Unexpectedly Great’. Why? Well, a lot of persons, when they try our wines say, ‘Oh, it’s unexpectedly good’, or say ‘it’s unexpectedly great.’ And we decided, okay, why not take it as our slogan, ‘Unexpectedly Great’? Because it’s the feeling of the people that taste our wines, the consumers.” Wines from Moldova – Unexpectedly Great. Why not? But one can only hope (and expect) that it will be a short-lived slogan, that soon people will no longer be surprised. That soon it will be “expectedly great”.

Delivering grapes at Chateau Purcari, Moldova, copyright BKWine Photography

BKWine Photography

Finally, I asked Stefan Iamandi, as head of the ONVV, what he would put forward as the greatest strengths of the Moldovan wines, and this was his take, “The big strength is our terroir and our list of local varieties. The big strength is also the fact that all the country is living through wine production. As mentioned, we have more than 55,000 owners of vines. During the harvest season, during the processing, all the country is working in this sector. Wine is a crucial sector in Moldova. And through this sector it’s leading all auxiliary sectors. We call it a strategic sector because it’s also involved in the production of bottles, the tourism sector, the marketing sector, and the horeca sector. Wine in Moldova, it’s our way of living. It’s running through our blood, the production of wine.”

And then, in the Paris restaurant where we met, our food and wine arrived and we had other things to focus on than the revival of the Moldovan wine sector.

—Per Karlsson

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