On Saturday, November 23, 2024, 17 confreres from the Bucovina Legate, accompanied by their families, participated in a trip to Iasi with a double objective. On the one hand, to take part in the International Wine and Gastronomy Festival “Wine with Culture”, organized in the restaurant of the Unirea Hotel, by the National Federation of Authorized Wine Tasters. On the other hand, the fulfillment of a long-standing desire to visit the two historic cellars in Copou, linked by the tunnel built by the late Professor Valeriu D. Cotea. If the Wine in Culture Festival was on the usual note for such an event, with 30 participating wineries, the visit to Copou and the historic cellars is worth focusing more on. The story begins 174 years ago, when the great wealthy Vasile Adamachi dug a deep cellar in the courtyard of his house on Copoului hill. The house in Iași, on Carol Street, the land and the vineyard in Copou, were bequeathed to the Academy, which gave them to the University of Iași. With the establishment of USAMV (now USV), the land remained its property, and the Didactic Station of the Faculty of Horticulture was established here. The Adamachi Cellar is located on this very land, where the University for Life Sciences also built an Oenological Laboratory. Four decades later, a few hundred meters away, Mihail Kogălniceanu also dug a cellar in the courtyard of the house built in 1892. The house later became the property of Mihail Sadoveanu. In 1950 the house and cellar were confiscated by the Romanian state. In 1954, together with the 5.2 ha of land, it became the property of the Iasi Agronomic Institute. In the 1970s, on the initiative of Professor Valeriu D. Cotea, an internationally renowned academician and oenologist, the two cellars were joined by a 330-meter-long tunnel, with the lowest point 8 meters below ground level. The tunnel crosses Mihail Sadoveanu Alley, with the two cellars on either side of the street. Prof. Dr. Lucia Cintia Colibaba, Vice-Dean of Research at the Faculty of Horticulture at the University of Life Sciences “Ion Ionescu de la Brad” Iasi, guided us through this mythical universe, steeped in history. He then brought us back to the present, introducing us to the Oenology Laboratory with its modern facilities and offering us a wine tasting in the gazebo. Eques Dragoș Danubianu Legat I. Bucovina
Legatul Bucovina in Iasi, at the “Vin la Cultură” Festival and in Copou – from the Adamachi cellar, through Cotea’s tunnel to Kogălniceanu’s cellar
