The wine industry of Besarabia as reflected in Polish consular reports (1924-1931)

Abstract

This article is based on materials from file no. 71, Fund no. 487 of the Central Archives of Modern Records in Warsaw. The file contains economic reports from the Polish Consulate in Chisinau, relating to the beginning of the interwar period. The authors of the reports wrote about the varieties and production of wines in Bessarabia, wine brands, their place in the Romanian wine market, their quality, as well as the export of Bessarabian wines to Poland and Central European countries, where they met competition from French wine producers. The Polish consuls had different opinions about Bessarabian wines: A. Świerzbiński considered that they were not worse than French ones, and M. Uzdowski preferred French ones. The last surviving records date back to the early 1930s, so it is currently impossible to trace the development of Bessarabian viticulture and winemaking in 1931- 1939 from the point of view of the Polish consulate.

Keywords

• winemaking
• besarabia
• poland
• interwar period
• consular reports
• trade