National Wine Holiday will cost 1 million lei

The 10th National Wine Holiday, on October 8 and 9, will be held at a cost of around 1 million lei and will involve 54 wine companies, 30 foodservice companies, over 100 craftsmen and a number of professional associations, Agriculture & Food Industry Minister Vasile Bumacov told a Wednesday news conference. Like in the previous year, this year the holiday will last two days and will be held at the exhibition center Moldexpo. “We wanted to develop a new concept this year, which is a special year, but when we gather the wine-making guild together and discussed this new concept, which arguably required more funds, most wine-makers said they were not ready to participate”, said Bumacov. He said that this year Moldexpo offered its entire territory for the Wine Holiday, which is thrice the space last year. For the first time as part of the Holiday, a folk competition will be held. Another event will the the presentation of the national brand “Vin Moldova” (“Wine Moldova”). Also, a special credit program will be launched which will offer loans to wine-makers at interest rates no higher than 6%. In addition, a ceremony will be held to award the winners of the contests “The Brand of the Year”, for factory-made wine, and “The Barrel of the Year”, for home-made wine. It was initially planned to held the Wine Holiday in the Great Assembly Square, but because it overlapped with the visit of Russia's Patriarch Kirill to Chisinau, it was decided to move it to Moldexpo.