Crâmposie

Today we are off to Romania to a place I had certainly never heard of. But, I let the internet be my friend and I was able to locate Drăgășani on a map. I was not, on the other hand, able to pronounce it. But, we are going there because it is the home of Crâmposie.

Part of Wallachia, Crâmposie sits on the bank of the Olt River about 3 hours mostly to the west of Bucharest. The ride through the countryside is slow averaging only about 60 KPH/ 37.5 MPH. We arrive in Drăgășani, get out of the car and the first thing we notice is the dry heat. It's early afternoon and the temperature is already sitting at about 37C/99F. This is not for fragile grapes.

I did something that I very rarely do on this blog; I tried to do some research on this grape (about 98% of what I write here is off the top of my head, but today I tried to use the internet). Wow, that's tough. People don't write about Crâmposie, at least not in English or in anything that Google Translate was able to translate into English using words with which I am familiar. 

So, based on the little that I have, here we go.

We've gathered winemakers from each of 5 wineries in Drăgășani to show off their own Crâmposie. Based on the similarities, we're going to infer some knowledge about these grapes and the winemaking techniques to produce the wines.

The first things we notice are the strawlike color and  a bit of white flower on the nose. The minerality of the local soil comes through. On the palate, this wine reminds me of a sparkling wine made of Sauvignon Blanc, but that has only gone through part of the methode traditionelle. It's effervescent, but just barely bubbly. But, not the green flavors on the palate -- pair, underripe grapefruit, a bit of green pepper. While I don't know this to be the case, this wine most be loaded with methoxypyrazine, the chemical that gives green bell pepper its distinctive flavor. Know what other white grape has this? Sauvignon Blanc.

We've found one of the five Crâmposie that we like best, so we have awarded the grapeoftheday ribbon to the winemaker and procured an additional bottle. Thankfully, we brought a chef along with us and she will be preparing a dish of local freshwater fish from the Olt River in a lemon beurre blanc that should pair nicely with the Crâmposie.


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