Wine Paradise!!!

I finally went to the Milestii-Mici winery. It is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest wine cellar ever!!!! But the best part about the Milestii-Mici Wine Cellar is that it is under ground and therefore, cool. It has been pretty hot lately (Mid-90s) and Moldova does not have a lot of air conditioning, so the moderate temperature underground was a huge relief.

The wine cellar originally was originally a mine for limestone. Then it was discovered that the temperature and humidity of the tunnels (left after the limestone was removed) were ideal for storing wine. They store wine in two ways: in giant barrels and in bottles. Both storage methods are pictured below.




In the late 80's there was an alcohol prohibition in the Soviet Union and all alcohol had to be destroyed or sold abroad. The employees at the MM cellar created a secret room to hide the most valuable bottles of wine. The rest of the MM wine was sold abroad. Today the most expensive bottles of wine are still stored in what used to be the secret room. The most expensive bottles of wine in the cellar currently run about $3000. There are a variety of other bottles that run about $1000. Here is a picture of me with the pricey wine. Just a quick a note: all the $3000 bottles are dessert wines.



Unfortunately, the tour was fairly short. We were able to taste three of the wines after the tour. We drank out of traditional Moldovan ceramic cups so it was difficult to judge the color and clarity of the wine (like I really care about that). We tasted a red, a white, and some type of rose/dessert wine. The red was good...

We then headed through the giant fountains of red and white wine to the gift shop. The gift shop had a decent selection of MM wines, however I did not buy any of the wine.