Romania

Romania is usually the fifth or sixth largest wine producer in the European Union, and almost nobody outside the country notices, because the domestic market absorbs nearly all of it. Consumption per head is among the highest in Europe, and a large share of the vineyard is smallholder and hybrid material for household use rather than commercial sale.

The native grapes are the reason to look. Fetească albă and fetească regală make aromatic whites; fetească neagră is the serious native red, dark and spiced; băbească neagră is lighter; grasă de Cotnari is the botrytis grape behind the sweet wine of Cotnari, which was ranked with Tokaji before the Second World War.

Communist-era planting favoured volume, and the recovery since 1990 has been driven by EU restructuring funds and by foreign investment in Dealu Mare and Recaş. The result is a country where a well-made native-variety wine is still unusually cheap relative to its quality, and where international varieties are common because they were easier to sell.