Lis cet article en français : Vins de Moldavie au Café Maritime.
Thursday 1 October 2026, part of the Bordeaux Confidentiel team was at Café Maritime, in Bacalan, invited by Victor Tanase and Julia Brad, from Maison Tanase Wine & Spirits, for a tasting dinner around Moldovan wines. A country with a thousand-year-old wine culture, native grape varieties, and a very concrete question raised at the start of the evening: how can these still little-known wines convince a French market that is among the most mature and competitive in the world? Here is the story.
A Moldovan dinner at Café Maritime
Last-minute change of plan: for reasons beyond our hosts' control, the dinner was finally held at Café Maritime, 1 quai Armand Lalande, in the Bacalan district. Date, time and format kept exactly as planned, and in the end a very fitting setting for a wine evening: view over the docks, a generous dining room, classic French cuisine able to seriously accompany a tasting.
The angle of the evening was clear: pair Moldovan wines with traditional French cuisine to pull these cuvées out of the pure history talk and put them face to face with our actual table habits. We're no longer just talking heritage, we're looking at what it delivers on the plate, on a pairing, in a real conversation between wine lovers. Spoiler: it stands up perfectly well.
Moldova, a thousand-year-old wine nation
Tucked between Ukraine and Romania, Moldova is a real wine treasure of Eastern Europe. A continental climate suited to the vine, gently rolling landscapes, varied soils, and above all a production tradition that goes back several millennia. The country has one of the highest vineyard-to-population ratios in the world, and wine there is a cultural marker, not just an agricultural industry.
What's happening today is a deep transformation of the know-how. The country has moved from mass production inherited from another century to a generation of producers who work on precision, terroir identity and the promotion of native grape varieties. The result: wines with a real personality, that don't look like anything else, and that have every reason not to disguise themselves as imitations of better-known styles.
Native grape varieties, an identity of their own
On the whites, Moldova expresses itself particularly well on two grapes. Viorica produces dry, aromatic wines, with delicate floral notes and a refreshing acidity that holds up through a meal. Fetească Regală goes for more fruit, more structure, and offers a very readable balance, easy to place on a starter or a worked fish course. In both cases, we're on real finesse, far from the standard whites the market churns out in series.
On the reds, the sequence is even more telling. Rară Neagră and Negru de Purcari deliver intense, deep wines, with an aromatic complexity that goes after ripe red fruit, spicy notes and silky tannins. These are elegant reds, sometimes powerful, always built around a clear identity. For anyone who knows the great Bordeaux wines, it's a different terrain but a serious one: the Bordelais had better watch out, Moldova is putting out cuvées that hold the table.
Our favourites of the evening
Two cuvées really stood out. In white, the Viorica Aurelius 2025, carried by the native Viorica grape, has an aromatic precision that hits straight away: expressive, floral, a clean palate, a white wine with its own language that you want to pour again at the table immediately.
In red, the Freedom Blend by Purcari is a demonstration: a signature blend built around Eastern European grape varieties, structure, dark fruit, spices, controlled tannins, length. A wine that speaks loud without being rough, and that stands up effortlessly to serious dishes. Real team favourite.
Maison Tanase and the French challenge
Victor Tanase and Julia Brad, in charge of marketing and communication at Maison Tanase Wine & Spirits, built this evening with a very precise goal: show the reality of Moldovan wines on the French market, a saturated, demanding market that leaves no room for approximation. To find a place there, you need real quality, a readable identity, and above all the ability to fit into our gastronomic habits. That's exactly what the evening's pairings set out to prove.
Big thanks to Victor and Julia for the invitation, for the time they took to walk us through Moldovan winegrowing, and for the quality of the conversations around the table. Our hosts for the evening, captivating, with a rare elegance, carried us into their world with grace and passion, and it's the kind of evening you leave with an immediate urge to come back. We listened, we tasted, we matched the cuvées to the dishes, and we enjoyed the evening without moderation. Thanks also for the dossier handed out at the end of dinner, which extends the discovery beyond the glass: project, producers, wines tasted, it's all there.
Moldovan wines tasting dinner
Date: Thursday 1 October 2026, 7:00 pm
Venue: Café Maritime, 1 quai Armand Lalande, 33300 Bordeaux (Bacalan)
Format: dinner pairing Moldovan wines with traditional French cuisine
Hosts: Victor Tanase and Julia Brad, Marketing & Communication, Maison Tanase Wine & Spirits
Highlighted grape varieties: Viorica, Fetească Regală, Rară Neagră, Negru de Purcari
Favourites: Viorica Aurelius 2025, Freedom Blend by Purcari
Website: maisontanase.com
