March 19, 2024

European Wine and Beer

No European Market could call its offer complete without European beer or European wine, so we offer a nice selection as well.

Poland does not have a climate to make good wine, but it has a very old tradition of making excellent beer. One of the traditional Polish drinks is a mixture of beer and honey. While we do not offer it, we do have two of the best known Polish beers – Żywiec and Okocim. Zywiec beer is known throughout the world, and Okocim is not far behind. Zywiec brewery owns its own springs in the highlands of Southern Poland – one of the most pristine, environmentally unspoiled areas of Europe. Its tradition of modern beer making goes back almost 200 years, and the region has specialists that have been brewing beer for generations. Zywiec Beer, or Zywiec Porter are superb and justifiably known throughout the world. We offer both to our customers.

BTW: Combination of great spring water and brewing skills in Poland was irresistible to many European brewers, so they purchased Polish breweries after the fall of communism. Today, Polish breweries not only make the excellent Polish beer, but plenty of other beers as well. For example,  if you drink Heineken, there is a good chance your beer was brewed in Poland.

We also import Czech beers. The Czech Republic is famous for its beers, and justifiably so. Czech Pilsner has no equals. If you have ever visited the Czech Republic, you know that Czechs take their beer pretty seriously. Everybody has an opinion as to what a good beer tastes like. Needless to say, even before the advent of microbreweries, the competition was brutal – only the best survived. We offer excellent Czech beers – Primator lager and dark lager, as well as Bakalar lager and Baklar dark beer.

Our beer selection includes beers from Slovakia, Lithuania and Russia as well. While these countries  aren’t  famous, you may be surprised how palatable brew they make. We offer Slovakain Golden Pheasant Lager, Lithuanian Svyturys (established in 1784) Extra Lager and Svyturys Baltijos dark red made with caramel malt. We round out our beer offering with Russian Baltika – we carry dark lager, golden lager, porter and extra lager. Romanian beers is represented by Timisoreana, and Ursus, thought unfortunately Ursus beer is often out of stock as wholesalers/distributors seem unable to secure a reliable supply.

Our European wine selection tends towards lesser known (at least in the US, as they are not carried by many wine retailers) wines from Bulgaria and Romania. Both countries have long standing wine making traditions. Bulgarian and Romanian microclimates rival those of the South of France.

Romanian Wine

According to Wikipedia, Romania has one of the oldest wine making traditions in the world, it’s viticulture dating back more than 6000 years. Geographically, it’s almost as far South as the Southern France. It has hot, dry summers which make the grape vineyards thrive. It’s said that wine has been the traditional alcoholic beverage of the Romanians since the medieval times.

Our Romanian wine selection is quite extensive, with a nice selection of white and red wines. You can enjoy the delicate, mellow taste of the Southern European wines that come from a climate that is uniquely suited for growing great grapes.

Whether you like the wine from the vicinity of the River Danube, or from other regions in Romania, we have something to please your palate. We offer Blue Danube Tamaioasa Romaneasca, Feteasca Neagra and Pinot Noir.
You can compare it to the Tohani Domani Tamaioasa Romaneasca and Tohani Domani Feteasca Neagra.

Naturally, we offer Doyna Chardonnay, as well as the Cotnari Feteasca Alba. Our Murfatlar offerings include Pinot Noir, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Gris and Murfatlar Muscat Ottonel.

Our champagnes also come primarily from Bulgaria and Romania. For decades, these countries supplied champagnes to hundreds of millions of people trapped behind the Iron Curtain. Our older customers claim that having tasted both, they find a good Bulgarian champagnes is comparable in quality to any French champagne. We also offer Russian champagnes. Russia is blessed with an incredibly varied geography and microclimates. While it never developed well known wine industry, Russian champagnes are very respectable, and are enjoyed by millions of Europeans every year – even though they have the choice of any bubbly they could desire.