Sălcuța Winery is a trailblazer in modern Moldovan wine making. Eugen Pîslaru was one of the country’s first winery owners to introduce vertical integration to his operation. This involved putting the entire production process – from planting and growing grapes, to harvesting, to fermentation, bottling and aging - under his control to assure quality. Sălcuța, whose leadership is now in the hands of Eugen’s son Sergiu. Hide full description

Located in the village of Zaim, Causeni, the Alexei Mateevici house-museum was founded in 1988, on the poet’s centenary. The current museum building was built by the poet’s father, the priest Mihail Mateevici. The museum has six rooms that reveal the poet’s contemporary atmosphere through paintings, sculptures, household objects and documents, a library of rare books and antique furniture. In one of the museum’s halls you may find the “Table of Silence”, which stores both soil from the graves of Romanian literature classics such as Mihai Eminescu, I.L. Caragiale, George Coșbuc, Mihail Sadoveanu as well as from the graves of Alexei Mateevici’s parents. The Museum holds over 7000 articles, photos and personal items. Hide full description

Ilie Gogu’s family operation produces small batches of top-quality vintages. The Gogu Winery’s vineyards are in Moldova’s best wine-growing area – the Ștefan Vodă region in the country’s southeast. The Gogu family began producing wine four generations ago, but they realized their dream of having their own label only in 2014, when Ilie officially registered the operation’s name. One reason the Gogu Winery produces such excellent vintages is that Ilie knows every nuance of wine-making technology. Although the company expands its vineyards each year, it remains committed to producing only top-quality elite wines. Hide full description

Unique architectural monument in the eastern Carpathian space, the “Adormirea Maicii Domnului” Church in Causeni is built at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This church is amazing and provides an optical illusion: although it looks small on the outside, the interior surprises with the generosity of its space. The church is located below ground level (being “semi-buried”), as Causeni was part of the Bugeac raya, respectively was subject to Ottoman laws that provided that churches should not be higher than the base of the roof of mosques and should not exceed a certain size. The paintings of the building date since 1763, being the work of painters Stanciul Radu and Voicul. Hide full description

The family-run Leuntea Winery enjoys one of the most storied histories in Moldovan wine making, with its vintages supplying the Russian imperial court beginning in Tsar Alexander I‘s reign in the early 1800s. The Cissa family’s operation also boasts Moldova’s oldest wine cellars. Turkish occupiers built the tunnels that would become Leuntea’s wine storage area in the 1500s. The winery began using them to age vintages in 1817. Making the winery’s reputation even more lustrous is the fact that many celebrities have visited the operation in the past two centuries. They included the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin and two Russian generals. One general, Mikhail Vorontsov, helped defeat Napoleon, then became governor-general of the Moldovan and Ukrainian territories of Bessarabia and Novorossia. The other general, Ivan Liprandi, who also took part in the Napoleonic wars, provided material about them to Leo Tolstoy for his epic novel “War and Peace.”  Two generations of the Cissa family are involved in the Leuntea Winery’s operations these days. In addition to the cellars and 18 hectares of vineyards, the family owns a mansion that is the centerpiece of the complex. Although the winery’s heralded past is always in the back of the family’s mind, it works hard to produce vintages that tantalize today’s consumers. Hide full description

You’re in for a once-in-a-lifetime treat at the Mester Faur, a treehouse inn with thatched roof that you reach by walking up an outdoor staircase. The thatch is a great fit for Cioburciu, whose history dates back 650 years. Around the village is one of Moldova’s loveliest forests. If you love soaking up nature, then a walk through this relaxing woodland is for you. You can also go boating or fishing or tour the Purcari winery. Hide full description

The Et Cetera winery is a slice of Moldova that is so enchanting that it is easy to feel like you’re in another world. The oasis that the Luchianov family created at Crocmaz features breathtaking views, postcard-perfect vineyards, peach orchards, fragrant lavender fields, a small but fancy winery, a mouth-watering restaurant and an exquisite hotel with swimming pool. Nina Luchianov, the mother of the winery’s owners, Igor and Alexander Luchianov, helps ensure that the food is exquisite. As an example, she hand-makes the pastry that goes into the restaurant’s famed Bride’s Pie, ensuring that it is tender and has the perfect buttery taste to complement the cow’s cheese or onion and potato filling.One of Et Cetera’s specialties is rabbit. You can get it cooked with potatoes in a pot or you can try the tangy rabbit liver pate. The Luchianovs grow a lot of the vegetables they serve to guests in their own garden. If you visit Et Cetera in August, jump on a bicycle and pedal over to the peach orchard to eat your fill of the succulent fruit. Coming in October means you can participate in the grape harvest. Not only will the Luchianovs let you pick grapes, but you can also crush them with your own feet, observing a wine-making tradition that goes back thousands of years. Hide full description

Casa Veche is a more than 100-year-old village house that will give you an idea of how rural Moldovans lived at the turn of the 20th Century. Its owners decided recently to turn it into a bed and breakfast for those looking for a traditional country experience, which can include seeing horse-drawn carts. The food at Casa Veche, which is close to the Dniester River and the Ukrainian border, is all-natural. An interesting story about Palanca village is that an agreement in 2012 that ended a border dispute between Ukraine and Moldova meant that many villagers’ homes were still in Moldova while their farmland suddenly ended up in Ukraine. A new border checkpoint in 2018 has made it easier for the villagers to tend those plots. Hide full description

The Purcari winery is nestled between the Nistru River and Black Sea in a setting that only the word “idyllic” can do justice to. The estate includes two lakes, where you can relax by boating or fishing, and vineyards surrounding the château that delight the eyes. Château Purcari not only produces fantastic wines, but serves them with exquisite a la carte dishes at its tastings. Two of the exceptional wines in its collection are vintages from 1948 and Queen Elizabeth II's 1987 collection, with English labels. When you visit the winery’s underground storage area, you can almost hear the footsteps of the monks who built the cross-shaped cellars to bless the wines. Hide full description