“Can you eat the flower ?”. Wine tasting at Castel Mimi

March 2025. Castel Mimi. Moldova.

One thing I should add about these Moldovan excursions; they weren’t cheap. Not surprising, as you’re basically hiring a private taxi for the day, and the vehicles weren’t shoddy Ladas. So it’s important you get your VFM from 50p pints and 10p donuts.

Our fellow tourists (from Kazakhstan) had forgot to choose the tour with a wine tasting, but an ever generous Mrs RM was happy to give up an hour of museum and join them for a late tour of Castel Mimi just over the Transnistrian border.

This is another of Moldova’s high-end wineries, more stately home than industrial unit,

and setting for a recent meeting of international leaders. Forget who they said this guy was.

Mrs RM had been enraptured by a recent You Tube video where some young English guys meet an (apparently) down-and-out Moldovan who they scrub up and take for a chintzy night out, Down and Out in Beverley Hills style.

We joined this tour late, and it was rather less extensive than the one at Cricova the day before,

but the wine tasting itself was a rather grander affair, five wines matched with the sort of pub grub you don’t get at the Stile in Wolverhampton.

I can’t speak for the Stafford Mudge, but I suspect like me Paul would prefer a cob and pint of Banks’s Holden’s to this array of fine wines (the reds the winners) and bits on sticks.

But you only live once*.

“Can you eat the flower ?” I asked the French guy, who actually sounded South African.

“Oui“. They’ll eat anything in France. (It was tasteless).q

Lily had spent her time transferring her ticket to Moldova 0 v Norway 5 to a mate, and therefore had a bit of time to give us a tour of Chisinau’s western suburbs. Rental costs have sky-rocketed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and flats in this building, for instance, were out of the price range of Moldovans.

Which made me want to explore Chisinau more on our last day. But first, after all that wine, I needed a beer.

*Regional variations apply

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

10 thoughts on ““Can you eat the flower ?”. Wine tasting at Castel Mimi”

  2. At first glance those blue pedestrian crossing signs look like the Aldi logo. Which made me think that you were shopping at the world’s most eclectic branch of the German discount grocer.

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  3. A 12.10pm departure tomorrow means missing their Polish Menu and so not knowing if “the sort of pub grub you don’t get at the Stile in Wolverhampton” is a reasonable assumption.

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    1. Yes, I had been wondering about the logistics of getting pierogi in the Stile tomorrow, and the politeness of eating it in front of you.
      I was just about to check on food in the Combermere and Lych Gate. A cob/roll/etc would do.

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      1. Martin,
        On 24th February I reported ;
        The Stile has …… £1.50 cobs,
        The Combermere was shut until much later and so I couldn’t verify anything,
        Knowing what to expect [ cobs, samosas, etc. ] …… I missed the Lych Gate Tavern,
        The Posada …… Their cobs are £2,
        The Wheatsheaf had …… cobs and pies,
        The Great Western was as good as ever [ from cobs to proper meals ].

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      4. I think I’ll save that joy for Friday morning, Paul. I’ll be at Wolves station at 10.41 or so.

        But I look forward to you telling me the Abbot’s drinking well.

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      6. I’ve never eaten in the restaurants attached to Premier Inns, half the fun is finding something local and interesting. I remember there was a very good ethnic cafe in, I think, Lichfield Street pre COVID.

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