Oprișor Winery, tradition at its best
Located in the Bear Valley, as it is called by the elders of the area, or in the Oltenia Plateau, the Oprisor Winery lies in the heart of Oltenia, one stone's throw away from the Bend of the Danube, where the Dranca Hollow starts. A land towards which many roads converge, but where nobody ended up until not long ago, it seemed frozen while waiting for a traveller to listen to its story. Recognized since ancient times as having a great quality potential, the wine-growing area of Oprisor was brought back to life, starting 2001, by replanting the 252 hectares of vines on the hills and slopes of the Dranca Hollow. The Winery is a few hundred metres away from the plantation.
The wine has a unique personality, both due to the personality of the terroir and to the art of those who tend to the grapes, achieve the wine-making process and create the brands.
More than 14 years ago, Carl Reh Winery, the company which owned Oprisor, offered to wine connoisseurs the first editions of the Val Duna and La Cetate brands, which have now been turned from promises into certainties and success.
The vine plantation of the Oprisor Winery lies to the southwest of Romania, 15 km east of the Danube banks, on the hills of the Oltenia Plateau, in the Mehedinti county.
The area is characterized by a Temperate-Mediterranean climate, with four distinct seasons. The heavy snows in January and February offer an optimum hydration to the soil during the immediately following period, when the mild temperatures of the spring month offer the perfect environment for the blooming and blossoming of the vines.
The summer season at Oprisor is sunny and warm, summing up an average of 2000 hours of sunshine, which is possible due to the geographical location of the plantation on the same latitude as the well-known vineyards of southern France.
The specific micro-climate of the Oprisor Winery plantation brings added value to the grapes for wine, thanks to the relief modelled along the banks of the Drâncea river.
The slopes of the hills rising on both banks of the river make up an “amphiteatre” configuration, with the slopes exposed to the sun both to the south and to the north. This micro-climate favorably bears on the ripening of the grapea in August and September, which proceeds slowly, with a moderate intensity from one day to the other.
Another particular vocation of the Oprisor terroir is characterized by the perfect harmony of the soil covers (rusty-brown, lithical-red, regosols, terra rossa) coming from the geo-morphology of the parental rocks of the Getaeic Piedmont, which combine with the argillous-sandy texture of the fertile strata, offering excellent conditions for the production of the most refined wines.
The summer of 2007 was the determining moment, when the Oprisor Winery defined its name and personality identity, structurally announcing two main areas:
THE DEEP OLTENIA is the first developed concept, which interprets and also illustrates the Oltenian culture and traditions into wine metaphors. As such, it has managed to sublimate the historical and spiritual values of a southern Romanian region into descriptions of individual brands.
The second direction, ART AND WINE, presents limited series of showcase-wines, which highlight the dialogue between the wine creators of Oprisor Winery and the contemporary aesthetic creation. The result is shown to the world through the work composed of the alchemy of wine, special concepts, the design of the bottles and labels.
Falling within the same line of preoccupations, the Oprisor Winery is involved in high-end contemporary cultural phenomena, not only by launching the brands of the ART AND WINE category, but also through the exclusive partnerships it has with the Contemporary Art Museum, the National Fine Arts University, the International Theatre Festival in Sibiu, contemporary art galleries, and so on.