Three Austrians and a German have placed their bets on making wine and attracting tourists in the Dealu Mare region of Romania, an area located along the 45 parallel, which benefits from similar conditions as the famous wine regions Bordeaux and Tuscany. Walter Friedl (in picture), Angelica and Martin Milosh and Hermann Geisler have together started producing wines in the Dealu Mare region of Romania, having already invested EUR 8 million in the LacertA wine business.

The investors hope to achieve sales of EUR 1 million this year, with revenues equally divided between the HoReCa sales, the sales in the store they have opened in Buzau country in the middle of the vineyard and sales to corporate clients. The LacertA wine will be sold only in Romania as its creation stemmed from the investors' own need to find more quality wine in the offer on the local market, Walter Friedl told Romania-Insider.com.

With their own funds and financial support from the European programs SAPARD and FEADR, as well as from the Romanian Government's programs for vineyard reconversion, the group of investors bought 82 hectares of land in the Fintesti village, in Buzau county, where they have set up the business. It took them four years to put together the needed amount of land, which was bought from 30 different owners.

They have started with a plot of 11 hectares of vineyard around the Dorobantul mansion designed by architect Ion Mincu, as house from 1901 which was renovated and included in the project.

LacertA's budget for planting new vineyard alone was of EUR 1.5 million. “The cost of land was low, the bulk of the investment went into planting the vineyard. The cost of land is similar in Romania and in Austria,” said Walter Friedl.

Eight years down the road, LacertA is already selling wine from the 2009 and 2010 production and has recently opened a wine tasting unit and a store in Fintesti, Buzau county, in the same location where the wine is produced. The investors hope to attract tourists in the area and kick off  wine tourism. Tourists can book wine tastings, visit the wine cellar, as well as the wine production unit in the basement of a new building.  LacertA, which works  with 40 employees, produced and bottled 100,000 liters of red wine and 80,000 liters of white wine in 2010.

Walter Friedl, one of the investors in LacertA and the representative of the group of investors has been living and working in Romania for the last 11 years. Fluent in Romanian and married to a Romanian, Larisa, Friedl has previously worked as a diplomat with the Austrian Embassy to Bucharest and as corporate business director with insurer Uniqa.

Other foreign investors have targeted Romania's traditional wine regions for private investments. Such was the Reh-Kendermann investment in the Oprisor wine cellar in Mehedinti county, where it also owns 240 hectares of vineyard. French Anne Rosenberg started the Clos des Colombes in the Dobrogea region, while the wine brands Vinul Cavalerului and Terra Romana have been fuelled by another French investment. Austrian investor Jakob Kripp and his wife Ileana own the Stirbey wine brand, which is produced in the Dragasani vineyard, south of Romania. Swiss investor Jean Valvis has also recently started investing in wine under the brands Samburesti and Chateaux Valvis, produced in the county of Olt, also south of Romania.

Corina Saceanu, corina@romania-insider.com