Today was Moldova’s National Wine Day, an event that deserves a post of its own because there was far too much happening to compress the entire day into one story. This one is about a single bottle of wine, but perhaps even more about the people behind it. When we entered the event and started walking through the different stands, one of the first places where we stopped was Pomușoară Dulcișoară. There are many producers at an event like this, including some very large and very well-known Moldovan names, so it would have been easy simply to taste something, say thank you and move on to the next table. Instead, we stayed. The people there took the time to talk to us properly, not simply to pour wine, and the conversation immediately made the stand memorable. We talked about the wines, the winery and what they were doing, and there was the kind of relaxed personal interaction that is much easier to find with a small producer than with a large commercial operation. We eventually continued around the rest of the festival, tasted other wines and looked at many other stalls, but that first conversation stayed in my mind.
After making our way through the event, I had already more or less decided where I wanted to spend some money. There were certainly many wines available, including bottles from famous wineries with much larger operations, but I wanted to return to Pomușoară Dulcișoară. Part of the reason was obviously the wine, but part of it was also the people. Buying directly from a tiny producer after having actually spoken to the person making the product feels very different from picking a bottle from a supermarket shelf. When we returned to their stand, the conversation continued and became even more interesting. I learned that the winery is genuinely tiny. The owner told me that they produce only around 5,000 bottles a year. In wine-industry terms, that is almost microscopic. Five thousand bottles is not a production line designed to feed supermarket chains across Europe; it is the sort of quantity where there is still a very direct relationship between the person making the wine and the bottles eventually leaving the cellar. Suddenly the bottle in my hand felt less like another consumer product and much more like something produced by a particular family and a particular person.
Then came the IT connection
The conversation became even better when he told me what he actually does professionally: he works in IT in Moldova, and making wine is essentially his other life. That immediately changed the conversation for me. I spend my professional life around computers, infrastructure, software, systems and technology, so discovering that the person standing behind a table of handmade Moldovan wine was another IT professional was both funny and strangely familiar. Apparently, after spending enough time working with technology, some people relax by watching television, some go fishing, and some decide that what they really need is to operate a small winery. I have to say that producing several thousand bottles of wine a year is a rather impressive definition of a hobby. Independent information about Pomușoară Dulcișoară actually confirms this unusual combination: the winery was created by Geo and Victoria Lupașcu in Cojușna, and Geo is indeed an IT professional. They started the winery in their own household and developed it as a very small family operation. So this was not just some amusing festival conversation; there really is an IT person behind the bottle.
At that point, buying some wine from them became almost a professional obligation. We have to support our colleagues, after all. Admittedly, this is a considerably more enjoyable form of professional solidarity than most things associated with IT. Normally supporting another IT professional involves reviewing a technical problem, helping debug some obscure configuration or discussing why a system that worked perfectly yesterday has suddenly decided that today it will not. Supporting this particular colleague involved buying wine. I can live with that arrangement. More seriously, however, I like the idea of supporting these very small producers. Moldova has an extraordinary wine industry, and the large wineries are impressive in their own right, but the small producers add another dimension to it. When somebody produces only a few thousand bottles per year, every customer matters in a way that is difficult to imagine for a company producing millions. A conversation at a festival can genuinely turn into a relationship with a producer, and that is something I would like to explore much more while living here.
The Sauvignon Blanc
The bottle I opened was their 2024 Sauvignon Blanc, a dry white wine presented as a limited edition and carrying the Vin de Autor mark on the label. The label also describes it as “100% natural”, which I take here simply as the producer’s own description rather than trying to turn this into a discussion about the many competing technical definitions of natural wine. What mattered to me was much simpler: I enjoyed drinking it. It is a smooth, straightforward Sauvignon Blanc, very easy to drink and without any need to intellectualise the experience. There are wines where you want to sit for twenty minutes analysing the aroma, the acidity, the structure, the finish and whatever happened inside a particular barrel three years earlier. This was not that sort of experience for me. It was simply pleasant, light enough to drink easily, balanced enough to keep drinking, and uncomplicated in the best sense of the word. “Simple” can sound like criticism when describing wine, but I do not mean it that way at all. There is considerable value in a wine that does not demand attention yet is enjoyable enough that you notice how easily the bottle is disappearing.
I also rather like the bottle itself. The label is distinctive without trying too hard: a warm copper colour, a large illustrated tree with visible roots, and very clear typography identifying the Sauvignon Blanc and the 2024 vintage. It looks like a small-production wine rather than something designed by committee for a supermarket shelf, which fits perfectly with what I now know about the winery. The tree and its roots also seem particularly appropriate for a family producer operating from their home in Cojușna. Whether that symbolism was deliberately intended in exactly that way I cannot say, but after meeting the people behind the wine it becomes difficult to separate the bottle from the story. That is one of the advantages of meeting producers in person. A wine bought anonymously is simply a wine; a wine bought after spending time talking to the person responsible for it becomes connected to a place, a conversation and a particular day.
A new project: the small wineries around Chișinău
The other useful discovery is that Pomușoară Dulcișoară is in Cojușna, in Strășeni district, not far from Chișinău. The winery is small enough that calling it a micro-winery is entirely appropriate, but it is not merely a production address: they receive visitors and have restored an old cellar where tastings can be organised. That immediately gave me another idea. We really need to start building a proper list of the smaller wineries around Chișinău and begin visiting them one by one. Moldova is famous for Cricova, Mileștii Mici, Purcari and the other large names, and of course those are important places to know, but I suspect there may be an entirely different Moldova waiting in the small family wineries scattered through the villages around the capital. Many are close enough for an easy day trip, and the experience of talking directly to somebody who actually grows the grapes or makes the wine is fundamentally different from taking a formal tour through a large industrial operation.
That may ultimately be one of the most interesting consequences of this National Wine Day. I went there expecting to taste wines and probably buy a few bottles. Instead, one of the strongest memories of the day came from an ordinary conversation at a relatively small stand. I discovered a pleasant Sauvignon Blanc, met another IT professional who somehow found the time and energy to become a winemaker as well, learned about a tiny production of only a few thousand bottles, and realised that the winery is close enough that we can simply go and visit it. That seems worth following. Living in Moldova should not mean knowing Moldovan wine only from the shelves of shops in Chișinău. If these producers are practically on our doorstep, there is no good reason not to go and meet them where the wine is actually made. Pomușoară Dulcișoară will therefore go onto the list, and probably quite near the top. And if supporting a fellow IT professional requires another bottle or two of Sauvignon Blanc, I suppose that is a sacrifice I am prepared to make.
External information was checked against official Moldovan tourism and wine-industry sources where available. The description of the conversation, the stated production of approximately 5,000 bottles per year, the tasting impressions and the opinions expressed in the article are based on my own experience and remain my own.
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