More than 100,000 visitors are expected to come to the Great National Assembly of Chisinau where the National Wine Day is held on October 1 and 2. Over 30,000 visitors of these will be foreigners, Gheorghe Arpentin, director of the National Office of Vine and Wine, told a news conference before the official opening of the holiday, IPN reports.
More than 400 types of Moldovan wines are presented this year. The visitors will be urged to take part in the activities that will be staged in the central square of Chisinau and to also visit the eight wineries that stage their own programs on the occasion of the National Wine Day. The National Office of Vine and Wine will cover the travel expenses. Gheorghe Arpentin said they aim to promote moderate wine consumption and the visitors will be informed how to correctly consume wine.
The National Wine Day is organized with the assistance of the USAID Moldova Competitiveness Project. The project’s vice director Diana Lazar said they want the brand “Wine of Moldova” to become a legend on foreign markets. To better promote Moldova abroad, the visitors will be asked to write a message on a postcard and to send it to any address in the world free of charge. This way, images with wineries and beautiful places of Moldova will be disseminated everywhere.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Eduard Grama said wine exports grow annually. After Russia imposed a ban on the import of Moldovan wine, the Moldovan producers started to conquer other markets, including the Asian ones. In Romania, the sales of Moldovan wines go up.
According to the official, winemakers informed him recently that this year’s black wines have a high level of alcohol and this is a problem as the consumers start to look for wines with a lower content of alcohol. However, the level of sugar in grapes this year shows the wines will be very good.
The National Wine Day was instituted in 1990 and has been celebrated annually since 2002. In 2009, the Government decided that the holiday will be marked at the Exhibitions Center “Moldexpo”, but in 2013 this was staged in the central square of Chisinau. Last year the holiday was organized in a new format, with the cultural and tasting events being staged at wineries, given the presence of about 300 tents put up by protesters in the Great National Assembly Square.
