Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017 - Virgin Wines

A crowd-pleasing red from Romania, via Virgin Wines

For many years, I used to travel to Romania on business; I never fell in love with Bucharest, but the wines were something else. Fresh, clean, well-made and elegant, they were everything the Romanian capital is not.

Feteasca Neagra is Romania's signature red grape; it is ripe, full, dark-fruited and spicy, something of an Eastern European Syrah. It goes well with steak, which is also something Romania excels at.

This wine is made by Cramele Recas, an award-winning Romanian winery with UK and Aussie connections. And rather like Transylvania's most famous undead count, it is dark, sleek and crowd-pleasingly charismatic.

Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017 (£12.99, Virgin Wines) expressively ripe, plump and spicy with dark fruits and plenty of toasty, vanilla-coconut oak. Fresh, vibrant and juicy with good underpinnings and very fine tannins, this is a sophisticated crowd-pleaser.

Thoroughly enjoyable and drinking nicely now straight out of the (screw-top) bottle with some evolution.

Match with steak.