What does it really mean to be part of a team if not to take every opportunity to strengthen your friendship with its dedicated members? You don’t even have to do this on special occasions, but when such occasions arise, it is all the more worthwhile to deepen the bonds of friendship with your Brothers. After all, this is also the spirit of Chivalry, and our Oenological Confraternity is spiritually based on the centuries-old principles of the Order of St. George and, in general, on the tradition of medieval orders, for whom the idea of solidarity transcended the primary empathy and became the bond of a real communion of life and ideas.
Why do we meet regularly at our most important annual events, such as the FCVR or Stiftungfest? Of course “for the culture of wine and for the honoring and presentation of noble wine” as the doctrine states right off the bat. But not only for this reason! These “cultivated parties” evoked in another fundamental paragraph of the OEVE codex are not goals in themselves. There is no belly-drinking (as some taverns of yesteryear used to advertise, now to be found in fast-food “all you can eat / drink”), no liquor-tasting. It is not orgiastic revelry as at bacchanals or ancient Dionysian feasts set to new, vaguely oriental rhythms, but rather a campaign “for change for the better in matters of life and wine”, “for the true nobility of the spirit”, “for the dignity of man” and, last but not least, “for peace, because the richness of wine demonstrates the fruitfulness of peace”.
All these concepts remain empty words if you don’t participate in the cardinal events of the Order or if you simply act as a mere presence there and don’t respect the chivalric principles, even interpreting them creatively, not taking note of the apparent rigidity of the solemnities involved.
For the Romanian Consulate it is an honor that every autumn, at the end of October (or, in the wine-growing context, at Brumărel), a significant delegation takes part in the Stiftungfest in Austria, the birthplace of Ordo Equestris Vini Europae. This was also the case for the 2025 edition, and Vice-Consul Marius Farmazon, Proconsul Gratzian Mărgărit and the other dignitaries present on October 24 in Rust am See and on October 25 in Klosterneuburg shared the values and precepts of the Confraternity to the full in the company of Confraternity members from most of the Order’s member countries. Asta înseamnă, desigur, ceremonii și agape, decorarea cu Crucea Ordinului în Argint a Eques Marcello Battaglia, Consilierul de Evenimente, și înnobilarea ca Eques de Vino a merituoșilor noștri Confrați Daniele Dattola (Legatul Bucovina) și Radu Ciordaș (Legatul Silvania), participarea la discuții formale și întrevederi informale cu membri ai Senatului sau demnitari din Consulatele-surori… but also new chapters engraved in the emotional memory of the Wine Knights of Romania.
AMICITIA PER VINUM!
Eques Dan Silviu Boerescu
Image, Communication and PR Advisor
Event photo gallery: https://tinyurl.com/49y3f73p
