Chardonnay from Romania

[plonk]

Has someone tried Chardonnay from "Black Peak" (Romania)? I have no experience with wine from East Europe - is it worth investigating?

[Innkeeper]

Although there is a small handful of good wines being being made in Romania, most, if not all, of what is being shipped out of the country is, if you excuse the expression, plonk.

[Tastevin]

Innkeeper, what a sweeping statement. Shame on you. By no means are all the wines shipped from Romania 'plonk'. What do you mean by that anyway? Hello Plonk, I suggest you give it a try. I understand it sells quite well just across the channel from us in Southern Ireland. I believe all wines are worth investigating (depending on ones personal finances that is). T

[Innkeeper]

I did say most, not all.

[sedhed]

Hey everybody ckeck out www.plonk.co.uk

[Thomas]

sedhed, did you notice the message about Christmas orders? Think maybe they are a little behind on Web site updates?

[Innkeeper]

If you will check the report by Caroline Gilby MW (and English) in Tom Stevenson’s “Wine Report 2004”, pp 175-184; you will find that she talks about quality Romanian wine for export strictly in futuristic terms. She is optimistic about the out years, and acknowledges some quality in wines for local consumption. The problem, as I understand it, is that when Communism fell the land was redistributed in tiny plots. This has given the tiny producers little option but to sell to large negociants producing mediocre wine. Some have gradually been able to acquire larger hecacreage, plant new stock, and show signs of good quality wine.

[plonk]

True sentence by Tastevin:

"I believe all wines are worth investigating (depending on ones personal finances that is)."

...especially the part about the finances. Well, I'll probably wait a little and will discover Romania later, because the "Black Peak" Chardonnay has about the same price as a lot of other wines I'm interested in (and that is a lot!).

BTW - www.plonk.co.uk/ is NOT my website [img]http://wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img]

[Thomas]

It is apparently difficult to break old habits--since the fall of Rome, Romanian wine has been mainly a home/cottage industry. Perhaps the future beckons.

[sedhed]

The only reason I posted the "plonk" site was that I thought it took a good sense of humor and courage to name your site WWW.plonk...
It's my understanding that plonk is a British slang word we[USA] use to say someting is "rotgut". I guess it did not work out for them.

[Thomas]

The way I understand it, the British use plonk to describe ordinary wine. Is that right, Tastevin?

But, any wine seller dumb enough to call his/her company by that name...well, you see what happens.

[Kcwhippet]

I found a definition of plonk in a British on-line dictionary - "A cheap wine of inferior quality." It boggles the mind why a British wine site would use that term as their name.

[Tastevin]

‘Plonk’ is an expression used here in a derogatory way to describe a wine that is perceived to be vastly inferior to those wines one normally drinks. Someone who, for instance, only drinks Classified clarets or Grand Cru St. Emilions may refer to a generic Bordeaux Rouge or Californian Cabernet Sauvignon as ‘plonk’. Classic wine snobbery. As far as I’m concerned, I have never referred to a wine as plonk, and believe that anyone who does so is a plonker. Now, I'm going to put on my whistle and flute, go down the apples and pears to have a nice cup of Rosey Lee. T.

[plonk]

Tastevin wrote:

"Classic wine snobbery. As far as I’m concerned, I have never referred to a wine as plonk, and believe that anyone who does so is a plonker."

Well, I agree... and I don't agree at the same time. How come? Well, of course there is such thing as wine snobbery (this isn't a good thing, but its human) - which I don't like. But there are surely really bad wines. To call them "plonk" seems to be ok for me -- and in addition it's such a nice word [img]http://wines.com/ubb2/wink.gif[/img] So I choosed it as my user name.

[Tastevin]

Ther's an old saying - 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' T