About a twenty-minute drive outside of Chisinau, Moldova is one of the leading wineries in a country renowned for its world-class wines.
On our recent trip to Moldova, we had a chance to visit Cricova Winery, famous for its labyrinth of underground streets and wine storerooms.
Location
Many of the buildings in modern Chisinau were built out of the local limestone, giving it the nickname of the White City.
As the story goes, most of this building material was quarried and removed from mines in the town of Cricova to form the tunnels and caves that now make up the underground streets of Cricova Winery.
It’s a quick and easy trip from Chisinau along good roads (more the exception than the rule in Moldova). Just follow the M2 North out of the city until you get to the junction with the M1. Here, you’ll take local roads, following signs for the Cricova Winery.
Brief History
Cricova was founded as a winery in 1952, although the underground labyrinths date farther back than that. Mined as a source of limestone to build the nearby city of Chisinau, the extraction left over 120 km of underground roads at a depth of 60-80 meters.
Winemakers discovered that the underground conditions are optimal for wine aging and storing wine. The temperature is naturally between 53° to 57°F (12° to 14°C) year-round, with humidity levels at about 97 to 98 percent.
Cricova is located just 15 km north of Chisinau, the capital city of Moldova. This puts it at the very heart of this small Republic, and Cricova remains near and dear to the heart and identity of the country.
Cricova employs numerous aging, developing, and preservation techniques to achieve a wide variety of wines to suit all tastes.
Cricova prides itself on being the first wine production company in the country to make sparkling wine using the “Méthode Traditionnele” developed by the famous monk Pierre Perignon.
Cost/Reservations
There are a range of levels of tours that you can take at Cricova. As we were traveling with a large underage crew, our interest was primarily in viewing the underground streets, not the wine-tasting experience.
This being the case, we opted for the Early Morning Tour. Prices are cheaper for the 10 AM weekday tour, which doesn’t include a wine tasting. Even better, kids under 7 get in free. The price per person for this tour is 220MDL.
The base price for a weekday/pre-peak time Underground City Tour is 400MDL per person. Evening and weekend prices are 500MDL per person.
The tours range in price up from there based on the number of wines sampled and the dishes served with the wine tasting. Weekend and evening tour prices are 100 lei more than the base price for each tour.
Tours are available in English, Romanian, Russian, and French.
You can make a reservation online here, or by phone. Be sure to reserve ahead of time to ensure there’s a slot available for your group.
What do you need to know?
The length of your tour depends on which tour you select.
We opted for the “Early Morning Tour” of Cricova Winery which lasts just over one hour. It includes one wine sample during the Cinema presentation, but no other food is served.
Other tour types include a larger selection of wine samples and food dishes.
Come prepared for the cold conditions underground. For us, that meant socks and sneakers, and sweatshirts and jackets. Hats and gloves are not necessary unless you’re very sensitive to the cold.
There is not a lot of walking required on the tour. You cover a lot of distance underground, but most of it is riding on an electric golf cart.
However, it might still be a challenge for those with mobility issues, as you have to be able to get on and off the cart.
There are several dining options on-site, including the terrace for lighter snacks, and the restaurant.
Is Cricova family-friendly?
Cricova Winery is a great place to take a family outing. Even if you don’t drink wine (as we don’t), it’s educational, fun, and interesting for all ages.
All five kids loved the fast and chilly ride through the dark underground streets on the golf cart. At times, I was a bit nervous that the two-year-old might fall out, but I had her securely on my lap.
The tour stops were just the right length to keep them engaged and interested, and the information was such that at least the older ones could take in what was being presented.
That said, there are numerous places where touching items is forbidden (lots of breakable wine bottles!), so if you know that your kids have trouble keeping hands off at times, it might be prudent to give it a miss for now.
Stops on the Tour
The most basic tour package takes just over one hour. You get to ride in an electric golf cart type of deal, with a number of stops along the way.
Here are the stops you can expect, although the order of the stops might vary depending on the tour you select and the time and group size.
1. Wine Streets
Each tunnel and road in the underground winery is named after something related to viticulture or a particular type of wine.
As you zip along the dark, chilly streets in the fast-paced electric golf cart, pay attention to the street names to test your knowledge of wines, and just in case you need to find your way out again (that’s a joke).
You’ll make a stop along one of these many streets to see the large barrels marching off in long rows into the darkness.
The tour guide will provide some facts and statistics about the number of kilometers of streets and the liters of wine stored in them, which you will surely forget.
2. Underground Cinema
At an underground theater, you’ll get to sip a sample of Cricova’s own fine sparkling wine while watching a video detailing the winery’s history and inspiring you with its ethos.
It’s also heated in there, so it’s a brief respite from the chilly tunnels if you’ve been feeling a little bit cold during the rest of the tour.
3. Sparkling wine bottling production
Another stop takes you to the bottling facility, where the duly aged wine is transferred from barrels to bottles. You can watch the workers skillfully managing the process.
You’ll also learn about several methods used at Cricova to turn wine into sparkling wine.
As part of this stop, you can see where the filled bottles are kept at just such an angle and rotated a precise amount every so often in a meticulous process to create one of Cricova’s special sparkling wines.
Make sure you don’t touch or move anything!
4. “National Collection” Wine storage
Immense numbers of historic and unique wine bottles are stored at Cricova. The humidity and temperature conditions are perfectly ideal for wine storage, so Cricova has become a wine bank of sorts.
On the tour, you’ll get to see this vast collection of some of the region’s most expensive and noteworthy wines owned by private individuals, corporations, and trusts.
My favorite part was seeing the mold growing around the wax seal on the outside of the bottles.
5. Tasting rooms and museum
You know you’re nearing the end of the tour when you reach the museum and tasting rooms. The museum gives you a glimpse of some of the region’s historic methods of wine production.
More nostalgic than educational, it’s still enough to help you remember that modern methods are not the way things have always been done.
It helps tie the past to the present, as does the wall of notable visitors to Cricova Winery. See if you spot any names or faces you recognize!
The tasting rooms are essentially large banquet halls for VIPs and their parties to sample the wine. They’re decked out in a variety of styles, from nostalgic, to whimsical, to grand and impressive.
My kids’ favorite was the under-the-sea nautical-themed room.
6. Gift Shop
The very last stop, of course, is the gift shop. You don’t want to leave without a souvenir of the memorable Cricova Winery.
Wines are only one of the items on offer. You can also find wearables and memorabilia, handmade crafts, and local honey, in addition to all the usual trinkets you might expect in a tourist gift shop.
It’s also another heated room, giving you a chance to warm up after your tour and cleverly tempting you to linger longer as you browse.