Anne-Wies van Oosten #92
Transilvania: forget about Dracula! Romania makes ‘bloody’ good wines!
Living in Transylvania, the special interest of Dutch wine journalist Anne-Wies van Oosten is Romania as a wine country. Anne-Wies started her journey visiting wineries in Transylvania, wondering why people call it the ‘Tuscany of Romania’. She made it the subject of her thesis with which she obtained the title ‘Weinakademiker’. After publishing it on her platform, she came to understand that Romania as a wine country is still unknown to many wine lovers and that there is a lot of misconception about the country and its wines. That made her decide to find out more, to travel all over the country to visit wineries and to publish about the different wine regions on her platform. It is an amazing project that is constantly evolving. Apart from her wine journey she hosts workshops and masterclasses about Romanian wines for consumers and wine professionals in The Netherlands to let them experience the diversity and quality of the ‘bloody’ good wines for themselves.
About Anne-Wies
Anne-Wies van Oosten is a well-known Wine-Food-Travel journalist from the Netherlands, currently living in Romania. On her online platform anne-wies.nl she shares her knowledge and insights on wine, food and travel with engaged, passionate consumers and professionals from all over the world. She is very active on social media on which, amongst others, she shares the articles she publishes. On a monthly base she reaches over 20.000 Wine & Food lovers. Writing as a free-lancer you can find her articles on several other websites and wine and food magazines, amongst others on glassofbubbly.com.
How it all started
Her expertise in wine and food has begun in 1980 when she started her own wines and delicacies store in The Hague, which belonged to the top-delicacies shops of The Netherlands. With this shop she won prestigious awards year after year. It was important for her to know where the products she sold were produced. For that reason she travelled all over the world to import her own cheeses, hams, wines, olive oils and much more. She shared her stories with her eager customers, but also started an online platform on enogastronomy to share her knowledge with a wider audience: ‘sharing is caring’.
Never stop learning
After she sold her store in 2014 she started working as a free-lance writer and journalist on wine, food and travel, but never stopped sharing her articles on her platform anne-wies.nl. Meanwhile she has obtained the degree Register Vinoloog of the Wine Academy® in The Netherlands, followed by a variety of specialization courses on wine and food, both in the Netherlands and abroad. She successful finished the WSET level 4 Diploma and graduated as Weinakademiker at the Austrian Weinakademie with her thesis about ‘The Development and Future of Wine Tourism in Transylvania’.
Anne-Wies is a member of
- Verenigde Vinologen Nederland (United Wine Specialists of The Netherlands);
- FIJEV (International Federation of Wine and Spirits Journalists and Writers);
- Circle of Wine Writers;
- Weinakademiker Club.
She was nominated as Wine Lady of the Year in The Netherlands in 2024.
