Wine Law

THE EVOLUTION OF ROMANIA’S VINE AND WINE LAW 467 peculiarities. Moreover, with no less than 855,000 individual registered areas, Romania has the largest number of vineyards (36%) in the European Union 11 . In recent years, a revival of Romanian viticulture and vinification has been achieved through reconversion programs and massive investments in this sector, some made by foreign companies. Although high-quality wines do not occupy a large percentage of total wine production, in terms of quality, Romanian wines are appreciated both nationally and internationally, several of the wines having been rewarded with medals and prizes at competitions. The vine plantations on the Romanian territory are spread in areas that differ from each other, from both the climatic and the ecopedological points of view; the differences are given by elements such as altitude, position or the presence of water basins. Concerning the Republic of Moldova, a neighbouring state formerly part of Romania 12 , the country has around 112,000 hectares of vines, planted with over 50 varieties. 11 In Europe, Spain has the largest area cultivated with vines (941,000 hectares, i.e. 30% of the EU total), followed by France (803,000 ha - 25%), Italy (610,000 ha - 19%), Portugal (199,000 ha - 6%) and Romania (184,000 ha - 5,8%). As already mentioned, Romania leads the detached European ranking (855,000), with over 300,000 more vineyards than Spain (518,000), who ranks second. The podium is completed by Italy, where, at the end of 2015 (last evaluated), 299,000 vineyards were registered. According to Eurostat data, the largest average area of a vineyard is recorded in France, where such a unit occupies 10.5 hectares. At the opposite pole is Romania, where the average area of a vineyard is only 0.2 hectares. Another aspect highlighted by the analysed data highlights that only 27.7% of the total area occupied by Romania’a vineyards is dedicated to the production of high-quality wines. Hungary and Germany are the Member States that dedicate 100% of the wine-growing area to this quality segment. 12 The historical region of Moldova, which belonged entirely to Romania, within the territorial limits established by the Treaty of Trianon (1919), signed at the end of the First World War. However, the territory was divided into two approximately equal parts at the end of the Second World War: the Soviet Union occupied the eastern part of Moldova (also called Bessarabia), and the western part remained in Romania. Therefore, at present, there are two "Moldova": one as a component region of Romania, and another one as a separate state - the Republic of Moldova, which declared its independence in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR.