Epicrama

Epicrama is a family winery founded by Sergiu Stradnic and Cristina Herța-Stradnic at Stăuceni, a few kilometres out of Chișinău in the Codru hills, working about two hectares. They planted at the highest point of the village in 2020, on what the estate calls a 45 degree hillside - a deliberate choice, and a hard one to farm - and run it on what they call cultura promiscua: the vines share their ground with cover crops, bees and geese rather than standing in cleared rows, with as little intervention as they can manage. Output is around five thousand bottles a year, all off their own land.

Stăuceni is a fitting address for it. The village is home to the school that became Moldova's national college of viticulture and winemaking, and is now the country's centre of excellence for the subject.

The planting is native and narrow: Fetească Albă and Fetească Neagră, and the whole range comes off those two. Fetească Albă goes into Éclat, a traditional-method sparkling, and into an amphora-aged white; Fetească Neagră into an amphora red, a barrique-aged Réserve, and the Soleil rosé. The wines are produced and bottled under SRL Kristi, the company behind the Epicrama name.