The Romanian Drăgășani was named after the town of Drăgășani situated right in the heart of the region. Vineyards are planted on the eastern and southern and just rarely on the western slopes of the hills stretching from the north to the south on the western side of the river Olt. The wine region stretches at a length of some 50 km along the river but its width hardly ever exceeds 6-7 km.

Unfortunately, it is hard to determine the exact size of the wine region, i.e. D.O.C Drăgășani as neither accurate maps nor the exact location of the boundary or a comprehensive list of the settlements of the wine region are available. The one thing that seems to be sure based on its geographical location is that the southern boundary of the region is marked by the hills sloping gently into the local plains on the north of the village of Brăneț as evidenced by Google Earth. Certain (rough) maps of the wine region, however, mark the southern boundary of the wine region much further up in the north, more or less parallel with road No. 677, that is to say along the villages of Arceşti, Cocorăşti, Scorbura and Cârlogani. According to a third, rather simplified approach, the wine region is bordered by Ionesti on the north, while its southern boundary is Strejești next to the river Olt.

More important than this is, however, that credible information related to the exact size of the vineyards are just as unavailable as those related to the wine region, or at least I could not find any. So, I asked for some help from my Romanian friends who work in the wine business and the results exceeded my expectations. The numbers ranged from 350 hectares to 8,000 hectares. Finally, after some hesitation, I accepted the first figure for the following reasons: only a few wineries produce bottled wines from the wine region, so for the time being only those vineyards from which wine is readily available count as Drăgășani DOC. There are no reliable data about other grapes.

Daniel Ercsey - WineSofa

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For anyone who would like a little more insight into Drăgășani wine region, click here.