"This is România": In Vino Veritas

The last leg of my Easter trip took me to a village called Cotnari, in Iasi county. If you've been to Romania, you know the name from the wine. Well, that's why I went.

According to the Lonely Planet, "There are cazare (room) signs in windows throughout the village." I disagree. And so does everyone in Tirgu Frumos who I talked to (about nine people), the people we hitchhiked from Tirgu Frumos to Cotnari with (two people), the Cotnari residents who they asked (a bar full), and the four people we stopped on the road in Cotnari, as well as the two people they called to ask. But by the time we believed all these people, it was getting dark, almost 9 p.m., and we had just walked to the top of a hill. Did I mention that Cotnari is just a little village, surrounded by nothing but 500-year old vineyards?

Out of despair, we walked into a Magazin Mixt to ask the shopkeeper if she could help us out. She ran outside and yelled the name of the store's neighbor, and he popped out to find out what was going on. After a call upstairs, he came to tell us that unfortunately he didn't know of a place where we could stay. He asked us: "Why are you here? How long are you here for?" Probably perplexed that anyone would come to their village without a guide or without someone to visit. The answer to the second question: one night. The first? Vinul.

Suddenly we found ourselves swept into the warmest villa in Cotnari. Dorel, an Italian who's called Romania home for over 40 years, and Maria, his wife who lives upstairs, adopted us. Their children are grown and gone—Mihaela closeby in Iasi, and Daniel off in Venice. They fed us with the treats from their garden and kitchen—cozonac, cherry jam, cascaval, and some meaty treats (which, of course, I missed out on). And the treats from their backyard—a vineyard. Though Cotnari is known for its sweet white wines, Dorel's vin alb was perfectly dry.

The next day, after Maria served us "cafea" (actually tea, coffee, bread, jam, and an apple), Dorel whisked us off on a personal tour of the Cotnari land. In his Dacia, of course. We were chased by a dog who ended up outrunning the Dacia, though the Dacia did make it up a winding hill to the meadow at the top, occupied only by Dacian ruins (the people, not the cars) and grazing horses. We got the keys to a summer palace that is now empty but owned by the Cotnari wine company, and got to poke around the facilities surrounding it with the winemaker on duty.

When it was time to go, we said our pe curand's and our va asteptem's. Maria called me princess one last time, and we promised to send copies of the photos. I promised to come back someday to dance on the third floor terrace and drink more vin alb.