Sometimes need makes you “get creative”. On the first weekend at the junction of spring and summer, it was planned to repeat the Wine Picnic festival, which last year was successfully held in the Botanical Garden. However, due to the economic crisis, no sponsors were found, and the main partner USAID stopped working. Nevertheless, the organizers of the event decided not to give up the idea of a wine “event” and do it on their own. For this reason, they did not consider a large venue and, accordingly, a long list of participants. The festival was named Wine Park after the venue – in the Stefan-cel-Mare Park, or rather in one of its parts. By the way, the Chisinau City Hall provided the venue free of charge, and even helped with cleaning and toilets (this would have been a serious expense).
“We saw the potential in this corner of the park, because it’s dark in the evening, and for that reason people don’t walk here,” says wine.md director Snezhanna Muntean. – And for us it was a definite advantage, because it gave us the opportunity to make the lighting we needed. After all, the atmosphere is important for wine consumption. In the evening it is the right lighting that helps to create it, which we emphasize in order to get a different picture (it really turned out beautifully. – author’s note). Besides, the professional eye is always looking for something unusual, and we are even glad that we managed to find another location for the wine festival in a new format. We wanted the place to be “clean” – not to be associated with any other events”.
According to the organizer, since Wine Park was organized by their own efforts, they decided instead of one big festival to hold a series of small ones (with a break of three weeks), where each member of the Association of Small Wine Producers will choose the date that is more convenient for him. It is planned that 10 producers will participate in each festival. From a financial point of view, an event of this scale is easier to realize for both wine.md and winemakers. These mini-festivals should end with the big festival of the entire Vin de Autor Association, which is scheduled, as usual, for the first weekend of September.
The first Wine Park release included Crama Mirceşti, Gogu Winery, Bahu Winery, Somma Winery, Vinum Estate, Minis Terrios, Unicorn Estate, Atu Winery, Crama Ulinici and Et Cetera.
Admission to the festival was free, but in order to sample the wines, you had to buy a tasting set for 200 lei, which included a glass glass and five “wine сoins”. These tokens were exchanged for portions of wines (125 ml each). A year ago, at the Wine Picnic, the set included 10 “coins”. This time we decided to halve their number, remembering how many visitors of the Wine Picnic asked to sell only half of the set of tokens. But if desired, it was possible to buy the “currency” of the festival at the rate of 1 “koin” equals 30 lei. After the festival, producers exchange their “proceeds” for money. It was also allowed to sell wine bottles for ordinary money. The glasses were left to the guests as souvenirs.
Since there was no money to pay for the artists’ performance, the winemakers themselves undertook to entertain the guests. In the evening of the second day Eugene Syrbu (Somma Winery) and Ilie Gogu (Gogu Winery) took guitars in their hands. Then everyone sang on stage. And the rest of the time, the musical accompaniment of rock hits was provided by Radio Roks, which became the media partner of the event. Rock music was not chosen by chance. People who have learned to understand wine are usually over 35, and they grew up on this music. The association series “wine and rock” is planned to be developed.
“We were able to organize Wine Park without financial support because we were ready in terms of infrastructure,” Snezhanna Muntean continues. – We have all the necessary equipment for this. We didn’t even invite anyone to the food court, having provided catering by our tasting room restaurant. On the one hand, this was influenced by last year’s disappointment with the catering of a subcontractor who, contrary to the agreement, grilled kebabs, which interfered with wine tasting. We decided that there would be no smoke and high food prices at our festival, as we could not control the prices of the other company. Therefore, we set the right prices in the food court, which are on par with what you will find in Chisinau restaurants, and something even cheaper. Besides, we chose dishes to go with wine, and we did not forget about children, because the festival is held in the central park, and people come with children. We also want to bring a new flavor to the local fast food. We went to European fairs to find fast food that would be associated with wine. At the same time, we realized that you have to prepare your own food to go with the wines.
Thanks to this approach to wine it was possible to take a portion of mussels in wine sauce for 120 lei or snails for 200 lei (the most expensive dish on the menu). Everything else was much cheaper (from 40 lei). For comparison: a portion of kebabs at the Wine Day cost 500 lei.
The festival turned out to be a chamber one, with a friendly atmosphere. It seemed that friends just gathered here to have a glass of wine and talk. It was very comfortable to taste and communicate with winemakers, as there was no pandemonium that accompanies large events. And the producers had very positive things to say, including happy sales.
“We want Chisinau to become the capital of wine, and such wine events to take place in the city permanently,” says Ivan Muntean, co-founder of wine.md company. – It is necessary that a tourist who comes to Chisinau, knows that he will get to some wine event. We organize Wine Days in October and Wine Vernissages in May and December. But this is not enough, so we organized Wine Picnic at the beginning of June and at the beginning of September, together with the Association of Small Wine Producers – Vin de Autor. Now there is Wine Park”.
