Moldovan Wine History

Historical period

Viticulture in these lands is ancient and its modern industry is not: Greek colonial trade on the Black Sea coast, medieval princely and monastic vineyards, German and French plantings in the 19th century under the Empire, phylloxera, then the Soviet period when Moldova became a principal supplier to the whole USSR — followed by Gorbachev’s 1985 anti-alcohol campaign, which uprooted a large part of the vineyard area, and by the Russian import bans of 2006 and 2013, which forced reorientation to Western markets and to quality production.