We had almost convinced Marcel Vulpoi to write monthly for Wines of Romania, but when we reached a delicate subject, namely the profitability of wine companies… He started a paper that now exceeds 50 pages and we are still thinking about how to publish it. But, every cloud has a silver lining – we had a chat about the news from the winery, but also from Bucharest, about wines and labels, about young people and their access to things we considered normal 25 years ago. And, as usual, we have a quiver full of news!
An interview by Radu Rizea
Goodbye, Opus Fabula!
Wines of Romania: Let’s pop the bottle of sparkling wine with the fact that, for now, has the highest news value: Opus Fabula…
Marcel Vulpoi: You mean the fact that it was Opus Fabula and it’s no longer? That’s right. Now it’s Contra Fabula.
Wines of Romania: So the fox is in the tree with the cheese in its mouth and the crow comes and tricks it?
Marcel Vulpoi: Yes, yes, something like that. Or, inspired by La Familia, I would say that we wanted to fight with wines, but they wanted to fight in lawyers. In other words, Opus Fabula is undergoing rebranding now, we will call it Contra Fabula, we had several options. Fabula still exists in Spain and, ironically!, also has a fox on the label. Antifabula sounds too much like Antifraud… So we stuck with Contra Fabula.
Wines of Romania: But what actually happened?
Marcel Vulpoi: We had an opposition from a winery that has a wine with a similar name. They sent a notice, we won in the first instance, then they sent a letter to the winery, which our colleagues did not identify in time and we could no longer file a response. Basically, the name was left hanging. We decided to call it Contra Fabula and, in the end, what matters is what’s in the bottle, not what’s written on it. Anyway, most customers came to the winery and said “I want that wine with the fable”…
We make wines, not labels!
Wines of Romania: There are also bottles that sell only the brand, because what’s inside the bottle… otherwise we wouldn’t have a counterfeit market for Chateau Margaux and the like.
Marcel Vulpoi: Yes, because there are also many customers who buy labels. In fact, one of my favorite games is for 6–7 friends to gather for a blind tasting, the sommelier would just say whether it’s a blend of 2 or 3 varieties, and we had to guess what exactly was in the glasses, Merlot, Fetească Neagră… Well, all equally tone-deaf like me, don’t imagine anything else. If you guessed the variety you got 0.5 points, if you also guessed the winery, it was another point. And the bill was paid according to how well you guessed – last place pays the most, first place – the least. And so, many realized that, actually, they were drinking labels. I like to believe that we make wines, not labels.
Gramofon launches Ressonant & Gramofoniac
Wines of Romania: Since we’re talking about wines and labels – it seems you’re preparing something new for 2025, right?
Marcel Vulpoi: Well, if you started directly with Opus Fabula… We have breaking news, worthy of interrupting the broadcast and putting on the yellow ticker! I kept thinking whether to tell you or not, but I can’t help myself… We’re going to do a project that I love very much, with Gabi Lăcureanu, with L’Artist, a wine created in partnership, in which L’Artist comes into resonance with Gramofon, hence the name – Ressonant.
You know that we have wines made with sommeliers – with Sergiu Nedelea, Julia Scavo and Virgil Mănescu, and I told Gabi, even back then, when we launched Sonorum, that there also needs to be a wine signed by him. And we agreed he would let us know when the time came, because it obviously has to be a wine at a certain standard, in a certain quantity… In the end, he’s attaching his brand to it, L’Artist, a brand he worked on, he built… And recently, while we were going to the winery, he showed me a few barrels with Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Fetească Neagră, he chose some of the 40 wine barrels we have, and made a blend in 1,200–1,500 bottles from the 2022 harvest, which we bottled and will leave in the bottle for at least a year, so it will be launched in autumn. And I guarantee it will have a launch like you’ve never seen. It’s going to be very fun – you know my opinion about wine, I’m the perfect tone-deaf guy, I say that when it comes to wine, people should have fun. Just imagine, you pay to come to the launch and you might leave in debt, hehe!
Wines of Romania: It’s a moment of maturity both for your collaboration and for the vineyard, Gabi Lăcureanu already knows your plots well now, the potential, the rhythms… The whole vineyard has reached maturity, including the replantings, right?
Marcel Vulpoi: Well, it was planted in 2009, we harvested fruit in 2015 so, yes, we have ten years of harvests. And also in the autumn or, I hope, earlier, we will launch Gramofoniac.
Wines of Romania: Gramo…
Marcel Vulpoi: …foniac. Meaning a "cognac" from Gramofon, we’ve had for three years at Zetea, aging, a Chardonnay distillate, now we chose the bottle, labels are being worked on intensely, and it will be a vinars / brandy called Gramofoniac. Here I hope I won’t have other copyright issues, how could we?! My idea was that you have to give people something to drink from the beginning to the end of the meal. That’s where the prosecco idea came from, and also the distillate, because an honest meal ends with a digestif. The problem was finding the wine, when I asked Gabi, he laughed and told me “what, you have wine worth burning?” And I looked into it, and it seems true that people used to send bad wine that didn’t sell, for distillation. Gabi looked into it, did his research, talked and met with many people who make distillates and, in the end, he made a Chardonnay under special conditions – don’t ask me, I don’t know, I understood that it needs to have certain characteristics, to be sent with the lees… We distilled it and I can say it’s very good.
Great Hill Music Club, designed for a young audience
Wines of Romania: And we arrived at your passion project, I know you had it in mind for at least two years… or even from the beginning, because at Great Hill Cotroceni there wasn’t much room for music…
Marcel Vulpoi: At Cotroceni the most we had was a cimbalom, a violin, and a guitar, that’s it. Then, at Bragadiru Palace, it’s a different kind of event. And I was thinking about our niche, “wine, art, food, music – the guilty pleasures in life” is a slogan I try to apply ad litteram… Coming back, I noticed that young people feel kind of out of place at the Palace, because those are events of a certain standard, a certain level and, let’s be honest, at a certain cost. And there was a need for a place where people feel better, more comfortable, to improvise, to be more for young people, ultimately for those between 20 and 35 years old.
Wines of Romania: But it’s said that young people aren’t interested in wine…
Marcel Vulpoi: That’s what I thought too, initially, at the Great Hill Wine Bar in Cotroceni I expected people aged 50–60 to come. Surprise! I was wrong! From 30 up to almost 40, if we’re generous, but if you want to see people under 30… Go to Nuba, Loft, and other similar places. And I said, let’s try this too, so we ended up opening The Great Hill Music Pub, where the target is to have a different kind of event every evening. So Tuesday – classical music, Wednesday – jazz, Thursday is jam session… Moreover, a location was needed that wouldn’t overwhelm you – you’ve seen how you feel at Bragadiru Palace, if you’re more sensitive… And we moved everything toward the youth zone, including the paintings, you’ll see it’s modern art, very different from the ones at Great Hill. Downstairs are two rooms, for smaller groups, if you want something more private, upstairs in the attic there’s room for 120 people, with furniture designed to let you sit relaxed, not with your back straight… And the wines are also in a fair price range, we’re not going with the super premium lines, but with more accessible things, same for the food. We’ve already had 7–8 events and they’ve been very well received.
At the Music Club you understand how important it is to have access to an alternative
Wines of Romania: Honestly, it’s a surprise that you have young clients looking for wine, but also to come to a place with jazz and classical music? Isn’t that too much?
Marcel Vulpoi: The wine bar is right across from the Conservatory. And I’m seriously thinking about having a day for students, a “student night,” with wine at a very cut-down price. Think about it – back in our days, we had Club A, Fire, Backstage, we had plenty of places where we could go. They don’t.
Wines of Romania: There’s another problem with those clubs – we used to talk, we had conversations. Now, in the TikTok era, conversations are shorter, with fewer words, half in English, but at least they exist. In a club, you can’t talk, you’re deprived of personal interaction, you don’t enrich yourself socially, spiritually, in any way.
So 40% would listen to something else, it’s just that no one gave them an alternative. Same thing when my students heard I went to The Trial of Eichmann, at the Opera. They thought the Opera was just people screaming – my kids said the same thing when I took them – but after they went, they changed their minds. This Trial of Eichmann production involved a team of 170 people, including actors, something extremely scenic. It’s necessary for someone to offer them the access, the contact, the moment. The question is: are they responsible for their choices, when they’re handicapped – no one offered them the chance, they don’t even get the chance to find out what they like?
Marcel Vulpoi: Because no one is taking care of education. The idea is to give them an option. I did an experiment right there at the Music Club. I went on Men’s Day to a party with all the guys from the team and I invited someone to sing jazz. When they saw the microphone, instruments and heard it was going to be jazz, they almost grabbed their heads. And I got an invaluable study. I asked them before the concert who they would have invited if it was their company. Nicu Paleru, Țancă, BDLP (editor’s note: Bogdan de la Ploiești)… Not even traditional lăutari. And that’s because this stuff is easy to access, easy to find, easy to understand. And at the concert, 20–30% went outside to smoke, 20% were chatting with each other, but the rest were listening, slightly intrigued, and were saying “hey, this isn’t bad, it doesn’t sound bad at all.”
