Romania's Frankincense Grape — The Wine Nobody Is Talking About (Yet)

There is a grape grown in Romania that the ancient Romans wrote about.

They called it uva tamaiosa — the frankincense grape — because of the extraordinary fragrance that fills the air when the clusters ripen in late September. A deep, resinous, floral intensity, almost incense-like, that rises from the vine before the harvest even begins. The Romans, who planted vineyards across their empire with the pragmatic efficiency of colonisers, found this grape unusual enough to record.

Two thousand years later, that same grape — now called Tămâioasă Românească — is still growing in the same foothills. Fermented. Bottled. Winning gold medals at international competitions.

And almost nobody in Western Europe has heard of it.

The country that wine forgot — and then remembered

Romania is the fifth-largest wine-producing country in Europe by volume. Pause on that for a moment. Fifth largest. More than Hungary. More than Austria. More than Greece. The Carpathian mountain arc creates natural temperature gradients that viticulturalists would design from scratch if they could. The Black Sea moderates the eastern coast. The limestone soils of Moldova and Muntenia retain heat with quiet efficiency.

And yet Romanian wine barely registers on the radar of most Western European wine drinkers. There are reasons for this — decades of Communist-era mass production prioritised volume over quality, and the reputational damage lasted long after the winemaking had transformed. What followed was a quiet revolution: a generation of Romanian winemakers who trained in Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Napa, then came home and applied everything they'd learned to grapes that nobody else grows.

The results have been, to put it plainly, remarkable.

Tămâioasă Românească — the grape worth knowing

The name translates literally as "Romanian frankincense" or, more poetically, "the Romanian Muscat of the incense." It belongs to the Muscat family — and shares that family's extraordinary aromatic intensity — but it is its own thing entirely, shaped by Romanian soils and Romanian sunlight across two millennia.

In the glass, it is unmistakable. The nose arrives before you've brought the glass to your lips: rose petals, orange blossom, a note of honeyed spice that the frankincense reference actually earns rather than merely claims. On the palate, depending on the style, it ranges from dry and floral to lusciously sweet, always anchored by an acidity that keeps the perfume from becoming cloying.

It is a wine for curious people. For people who are bored of being offered the same eight grape varieties every time they eat out. For people who want to tell a story at the table rather than just open a bottle.

Fetească Neagră — the black maiden

Romania's other great native variety is Fetească Neagră — "the black maiden" — and it is as different from Tămâioasă as night is from its namesake day.

This is a red wine grape. Dense, dark-fruited, structured. Think plum, dried herbs, dark chocolate, a whisper of tobacco. In skilled hands, it produces wines of genuine weight and complexity — the kind of wines that hold their own in any company, from any country. Romanian winemakers have been producing Fetească Neagră for centuries, but the international wine press is only now beginning to pay attention.

When it does, prices will follow. For now, the discovery window is open.

Why Dis&Dis carries Romanian wines

We have a simple rule when building this collection: if the story is extraordinary and the wine is excellent, it earns its place. Provenance isn't limited to Bordeaux and Burgundy. Excellence doesn't require a famous appellation name.

The Romanian wines in our collection were chosen because they passed both tests. Gold medals. Native varieties. Prices that still reflect the fact that the rest of the market hasn't caught up with the reality inside the glass.

That gap will close. The question is whether you discover them before it does.

What to try first

If you are new to Romanian wine, start with Tămâioasă Românească. It is unlike anything else in the collection — which is exactly the point. The frankincense grape rewards the curious and surprises the sceptical.

If you prefer red wine, seek out Fetească Neagră. Give it twenty minutes in the glass. Then decide whether Romanian wine belongs in your cellar.

We think you'll know the answer before you finish the first pour.

Explore the Romanian Wine Collection →