IN BREVE
- Radacini Wines has launched the first Moldovan wines certified under the PDO Dealul Craveț, including Aparté Sauvignon Blanc and Aparté Chardonnay 2025.
- The PDO covers the villages of Budăi and Crăsnășeni and requires that grapes come exclusively from this delimited area.
- Permitted varieties include Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Fetească Albă and many others, along with sparkling wine categories.
- This new PDO tier represents a differentiation tool for Moldovan wine, bringing it closer to European standards.
- Radacini is the first company to use the PDO certification commercially, but not the only one authorized.
Moldovan wine brings origin into focus. Radacini Wines has presented Aparté Sauvignon Blanc 2025 and Aparté Chardonnay 2025, the first labels marketed under the PDO Dealul Craveț. These would be the first Moldovan wines certified and brought to market within the current Protected Designation of Origin system, harmonized with European regulations.
The launch took place in Budăi, in the Telenești district, among the vineyards from which the grapes originate. A significant step in the transformation process of Moldovan wine already covered by Winemag: from national identity and large wine regions to the delimitation of narrower, verifiable microzones.
SAUVIGNON BLANC AND CHARDONNAY OPEN THE PDO
The two dry white wines belong to the new Aparté collection from Radacini. Both are single-variety wines from the 2025 vintage and carry the PDO Dealul Craveț on the label. The Aparté range also includes two reds, Ancellotta and Bastardo Magaraciski, presented as “special selections” but without the appellation.
The choice to inaugurate the PDO with Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay confirms the weight of international varieties in Moldovan production. But it changes the way they are communicated. The grape variety is no longer the only recognizable element: it is joined by the name of a delimited place, subject to production regulations and a traceability system.
WHERE DEALUL CRAVEȚ IS LOCATED
The PDO covers the territories of the villages of Budăi and Crăsnășeni, in the Telenești district, in the central part of the Republic of Moldova. The name recalls the Craveț hill, around which the vineyards form a kind of amphitheater open to the south.
According to the Dealul Craveț production regulations, the vineyards are located predominantly between 120 and 210 meters altitude. South, southeast and southwest exposures favor ripening, while the woods on the northeastern slope limit the impact of cold air masses and the risk of late frosts.
The area records approximately 451 millimeters of rainfall per year and between 2,100 and 2,200 hours of sunshine. The soils are light, well-aerated and characterized by limited productivity. The production regulations set a maximum yield of 10 tons of grapes per hectare and prohibit blending PDO wines with products from other regions or from abroad.
The appellation is not limited to Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Permitted varieties also include Fetească Albă, Fetească Regală, Floricica, Viorica, Legenda, Riton, Pinot Gris. And also: Riesling, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The PDO also includes several sparkling wine categories.
FROM REGION TO MICROZONE
In recent years the Moldovan system of controlled-origin wines has developed primarily around the three large PGI Codru, Ștefan Vodă and Valul lui Traian. The PDO Dealul Craveț introduces a much narrower geographical tier.
In the European model, the difference between PDO and PGI concerns primarily the intensity of the link with the territory. For a PDO wine, grapes must come exclusively from the delimited area. For a PGI wine the European threshold is instead set at a minimum of 85%.
For Moldova, the new appellation therefore represents a differentiation tool. To variety, style and company brand is added a circumscribed origin, verifiable from vineyard to bottle. An evolution consistent with the progressive alignment of the Moldovan wine sector with European Union standards.
RADACINI’S PRIMACY AND THE HISTORIC APPELLATIONS
The primacy claimed by Radacini requires clarification, however. Dealul Craveț was registered in Moldova on May 28, 2022. In February 2023 the State Intellectual Property Agency AGEPI issued certificates for use of the appellation to three companies: Clasicvinagro, Ducates Grup and Radacini Wines. Radacini is therefore not the only authorized company, but the first to have transformed the certification into a commercial launch.
Designations of origin, moreover, were not completely absent from the country’s wine history. Ciumai and Romănești belong to the previous Moldovan system and were already protected in European Union territory before the 2016 recognition of the PGI Codru, Ștefan Vodă and Valul lui Traian, as documented by AGEPI itself.
The novelty therefore concerns the first wines placed on the market within the current Moldovan PDO system, built according to criteria closer to European ones. With Dealul Craveț, the name of a microzone concretely enters the label. The next verification will be in the glass: understanding whether the greater legal precision of origin will correspond to an equally recognizable difference in the wines.
