March 2025. Cricova, Moldova.
I really didn’t want to do the wine tasting, but Mrs RM said she couldn’t really count Moldova as ticked without a winery; it would be like ticking a pub with a half rather than a pint.
Cricova isn’t the biggest winery in Moldova, but we drove through a mile of vineyards to the entrance, where we descended to electric cars which would zoom through 120 km of underground. (press PLAY).
That’s one hundred and twenty (120) kilometres, folks. In years past Holt used to sell their bitter in barrels this big.
Apparently, and this may be a trade secret so don’t repeat it, wine is made from grapes ! Who knew ?
I have even less interest in the production of wine than I do beer, but Cricova put on a thoroughly professional tour, plying Mrs RM with sparkling wine (Champagne but you can’t call it that) at exactly the right intervals,
and repeating the legend that Yuri Gagarin became lost in those tunnels after a night on the red in 1966. I reckon there’s truth in that.
My highlight was the stops every mile or so at a little underground booth containing a stern lady performing (I presume) internal audit, security or diversity functions.
There’s a trip round one of the largest collections of centuries old wine (I’ve got a bottle of Doom Bar dated 2018, mate), and some increasingly ornate tasting rooms.
At the entrance to the main hall, an increasingly distressed group of ladies discovered they’d made the wrong booking and bought the tour but not the (very high quality) wine package.
Mrs RM would never make such an elementary mistake.
retiredmartin 
Those rooms have a very unusual look to them.
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Very Russian. All of America will look like that soon, Dave.
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I don’t like wine. Any kind of wine. Beer for me every time.
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I like Malbec, Bill. Isn’t that beer ?
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Have you been going on Untappd, Paul?
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Not knowingly Martin. I was just finding a picture if what I thought was a relevant drink, one that my pint of which proves that I’m averse to all “craft beer”.
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A man after my own heart, Paul, although I did give them a fair trial before I reached that opinion.
I discovered last night – incidentally – that the most terrifying words in the English language aren’t “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help” as Ronald Reagan oh-so-funnily-but-tediously-and-obviously-wrongly claimed.
They’re beaten by as little as “Have you dined with us before?”
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Where was that !
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Oh, you get it at every sort of, like, tapas place, Martin (as you know).
I wouldn’t like to disparage a popular local place where people are – successfully for the time being – earning a living, as you don’t with whatever stripe of micropub or craft bar.
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It sounds like Gagarin had an even better time there than when he came to Manchester in July 1961 (note all the umbrellas up in the pouring rain as the archetypally Mancunian summer weather struck again).
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I don’t believe it, Matthew. It never rains in Manchester when I visit.
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Rain in Manchester ;
“Once Manchester experiences it first drop of rain onto the pint glass, the detector will light up and the free pints deal will be activated in Greene King pubs up and down the country, so Brits can head to their local participating pub to shield from the rain and quench their thirst. Keen viewers can watch the action unfold via a livestream of the Rain Drop Detector from the 25th March: https://www.greeneking.co.uk/we-pour ”
greeneking.co.uk/newsroom/greene-king-is-giving-away-100-000-free-pints-but-only-if-it-rains
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