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Five minutes with Philip Cox, Cramele Recas

Some retail and trade customers are scared about local varieties. With the less far-sighted ones, it’s easier for them to go to cheap versions of stuff that already sells, like Pinot Grigio, which then makes it more of a hard sell for local varieties. But we want to sell local varieties exactly for that reason, to make it something which is more sustainable in the long term. I don’t mean ecologically necessarily, I mean not fighting in a sea of Pinot Grigios and Sauvignons.

• Read more: Queena Wong of Curious Vines 

It’s better to have something which is more distinct. We want to promote Romania, even though some people wouldn’t see that as such an important role for the trade, but I think it is important for the end consumers. We now have our Sorcova Fetească Regală in Waitrose, which [the retailer] is very much behind and promoting. We have a similar wine, another Fetească Regală called Incanta, which has just launched in Majestic. Next month we’re launching a sister variety, called Fetească Albă, with Tesco. We already have one with M&S in its Found range.

That’s got to be a record for us [with indigenous varieties], and it’s pretty important to have these varieties in the supermarkets, because Romania is good at these varieties, and we are good at them. We want to have a point of difference from the many other wine companies around the world. It’s part of our strategy: we want to encourage this, and there will be other varieties – we’re working on this at the moment, but I can’t tell you just yet, because they’re not signed off.

• Cramele Recas
• pinot
• Sustainability
• Romania
• local
• Philip Cox
• Romanian varieties