Food & Wine Tour

Arrive in the capital city – Chisinau. With a culinary history that takes the very best from Romanian and Russian cuisines, Chişinău is a small Eastern Europe capital with high quality restaurants and delicious local wines.

On this evening you will enjoy a traditional dinner at one of the most famous restaurants, taste from Moldovian cuisine accompanied by folk music.   

It’s market day in Chisinau!First day in Chisinau we start with the City Tour, after seeing the main attractions in old town, visit the local Eco Market where come local farmers to sell their unique production.

Next beautiful place which we will visit will be the famous Orhei Vechi region. First stop in Trebujeni village for a Culinary Master Class with the host, you will be preparing one of the most authentic dishes- “Placinte” and then enjoy a traditional lunch with home-made wine.

Continue the day by discovering the archaeological and ecclesiastical complex at Orhei Vechi. One of the most important sites from our country. Discover the cave monastery which dates from the XII century.

Cricova cellars are truly unequalable in the world. Its history starts in 1952, “Cricova”, rightfully referred to as the ‘Pearl of Moldovan Winemaking’, is a unique underground complex that got renowned throughout the world for both its huge labyrinths and its excellent wines. “Cricova” is the first Moldovan company that manufactures sparkling wine by the method of the famous monk Dom Pierre Perignon – “Méthode Traditionelle”, i.e. secondary fermentation in the glass and subsequent cuvée ageing.
Nowadays, the wine town occupies an area of ​​53 hectares, and the underground galleries, transformed into streets, have a total length of 120 kilometers.Like in a real town, there are streets, traffic lights and road signs. It is just that the paths of the labyrinth have rather unusual names like “Cabernet”, “Dionis”, “Feteasca”, “Aligote”, “Sauvignon”, so that every street matches the name of the wine that is stored in the adjacent niches. The temperature in the underground galleries remains constant all year round, making up appr. + 12 … + 14°C, while the relative humidity of the air is around 97-98%.

Our morning drive takes us from Chisinau to Gagauzia region. Gagauz Yeni, that’s the official name of the autonomus region, covers an area of 1,831 km² and has, as already mentioned above, about 158900 inhabitants. Around 80% of the population are ethnic Gagauzians. 

We’ll visit Besalma village where we find a true pearl of gagauz culture “D. Cara-Ciobanu”  museum of National Gagauz History and Ethnography which introduces the history of the Bulgarians and Gagauzians from the south of Moldova.

The day will continue at Karagani winery – a family winery located in Vulcanesti, in the southern part of Moldova. Here the whole family is involved in wine production process. Cerven family will meet and greet you, as well you will taste their special wines accompanied by gagauz dishes like shorpa, gozleme, bulgur with lamb, in a homey atmosphere featuring many traditional elements.

On the way backhave a short tour of the capital city of Gagauzia – Comrat.  The black horse is the symbol of Comrat. According to an old legend, the city was named Comrat in her honor. Tatar Orumbet Oglu, the owner of Comrat lands had an outlandish black horse – Comur At. She won important
for the owner race, and he immortalized her name on the names of his estates. 

After breakfast we drive north to Horodiste village. On the way to Horodiste have a stop in the Lavanda fields.

Excursion with tasting and lunch at „Fromage – fabricat in Moldova”.  Thierry and Tatiana live in Horodiste village(Rezina district). Engaged in charity and social projects, the couple work and make real French cheeses. They buy milk from locals as raw material for the production of chesses. Moldova is rich in high-quality natural milk- for one kilogram of cheese you need an average of 10 liters of milk, so a small cheese production is now a common cause for the whole village. Here you will have the unique oportunity to taste french cheeses accompanied by wine and natural jam.

We drive futher to Lalova village, where we discover the “Hanul lui Hanganu” agro-boarding pension. The host Mrs. Emilia will meet us, then together we will have a culinary master class in which we will learn the technique of preparing “sarmale”, the smallest and cutest in Moldova. At lunchtime we taste the flair, and in the end we enjoyed a dessert of the house.

After a complex lunch we need to bur some calories, so we head to Tipova natural reserve and cave monastery. The fantastic Tipova Cave Monastery is built into cliffs that tower some 200m above the Dniestr River’s right (west) bank. From the parking area, walk through a modern Orthodox church complex toward the cliff edge, from where there are spectacular views of the Dniestr embracing the picturesque Transdniestran village of Popenki on the opposite bank. Head south along the cliff edge and follow steep trails down to the cave monastery.

Transfer back to Chisinau.

And the cherry on the cake… Transnistria! Yess, we know you’ve heard a lot about this region, and now its time to discover it.

First we take you to capital city – Tiraspol, and the first stop will be at “Aquatir” strugeon complex. A unique industrial enterprise on breeding sturgeon fish species and getting black caviar of sterlet, bester, Russian sturgeon and beluga.  Here you will feel spoiled by tasting some extraordinary caviar.

Now we explore the city Tiraspol, which seems to be frozen from the soviet times. Lenin monument, Ekaterina II, Suvorov, tanks etc., all of these creates the feeling you are back to USSR times…

It’s lunch time and we head to the best restaurant in town with eastern european cuisine. Here we will enjoy a borscht with pampuska and other culinary delights.

After lunch next visit will be the legendary brandy factory “KVINT”. The company manufactures wines, vodka, brandy, calvados and gins, but the most important product is the divin (cognac). The divines are aged between 3 and 50 years. Numerous awards won at various international contests and tasting competitions prove the premium quality of KVINT products: 10 Super Grand Prix Trophies, 30 Grand Prix, and more than 300 gold and silver medals. Enjoy a divin tasting of 5 samples.

And now we invite you to the farewell dinner, and as the best place to celebrate this amazing trip we chose for you Castel MIMI winery. No doubt you will be impressed by the greatness of this place, its history, as well as the wines and the phenomenal gastronomy.

It’s time to say goodbye. But we hope to see you on your next adventure in Moldova!