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The story

Visit

Gräfenberg, the depots of Mediaș and the town itself: places that appear in documents and exist on the map. We do not publish a visiting timetable we cannot keep; we publish how…

4 min read

Gräfenberg, the depots of Mediaș and the town itself: places that appear in documents and exist on the map. We do not publish a visiting timetable we cannot keep; we publish how to reach them and what can be seen.

Gräfenberg

Gräfenberg is the hill above Mediaș, with the vineyard that gave the estate its name. Here Michael Ambrosi sen. planted 20 ha with vines and American hybrid rootstocks; here his son made, after 1919, the clone selections that led to Fetească Regală. The name appears in the documents beside plantings, harvests and selections, not beside a manor.

The landscape is a working one: rows of vines, farm tracks, a view over the town. It is not a park and not a museum site. The photographs in the archive — the plantings on Gräfenberg, the harvest — show what to look for on the ground: the structure of the rows, the old plants, the traces of irrigation.

Access is with the owner's agreement and is arranged through contact. We do not promise tastings and we do not promise entry to the cellars: we promise a reading of the place, if it is a suitable day. Visits are by arrangement.

The depots of Mediaș

The depots are the most important and least visible part of the story. Ambrosi held Transylvania's wine logistics depots at Mediaș, sited beside the railway, because the train was the principal means of transport of the age. Here the wine that went to the kingdom and the monarchy was gathered, held and prepared for dispatch.

The buildings now have other uses, and the cellar does not operate as a museum. What remains is the paperwork: the envelope «Viile și Pivnițele Ambrosi, Mediaș», the Ambrosi Imperial and Ambrosi Privat labels, the expert report and the house catalogue. They show a business that thought in seasons, in wagons and in stocks.

Visiting the depots belongs to the future of the project, not its present. Access is arranged through contact, depending on the state of the works and the owners' agreement.

Mediaș, the core of Transylvania

Mediaș is the starting point. The town stands in the Târnava valley, in the middle of the former Weinland, and the traces of the wine metropolis are still legible: the cellars beneath the houses, the depots near the station, the merchants' streets. The address of the Ambrosi house is Str. Johannes Honterus nr. 6.

For a visitor, the town reads in four superimposed layers: the vine, the rocket, the gas, the castle. Hermann Oberth, one of the fathers of modern astronautics, was born in Mediaș; the methane gas industry put the town on the country's economic map; the castle marked the medieval destiny of the settlement. The history of wine is the oldest and least visible layer — which is why it needs a route of its own, with documents, houses and cellars. A tour of Mediaș that does not pass through Honterus Street misses the town that was a wine metropolis.

Visits are by arrangement through contact. We have no published opening hours, because there is no permanent museum space; there is an address, an archive and people who answer. Write to us a few days in advance and say what interests you.

Events

Mediaș already has a calendar that carries the wine story forward: Weinfest Mediaș, Weinfest Christmas Edition and Oktoberfest Boutique, organised within the Core of Transylvania platform. To these is added the International Day of Fetească Regală, whose proclamation in Mediaș was launched in 2021 and which is celebrated every year on 3 June.

The programme and exact dates are announced year by year by the organisers; for current editions, the surest thing is to ask directly. The site does not publish a permanent calendar and does not put up dates it cannot keep.

The Ambrosi project's presence at these events is natural: a town that celebrates its wine needs the documentary side too, not only the festive one. That is where the archive, the house and the future cellar come in.

The people

Those who carried the name

  • 1862–1933

    Michael Ambrosi sen.

    President of the Viticultural Commission, nurseryman, author of leaflets on grafting

    Michael Ambrosi sen. (1862–1933) came from an old family of cultivators in the Târnava country. In 1875, on his father's death, he left school at thirteen and took over the family's vineyards, fields and pastures; from then on he learned the trade in the vineyard. When phylloxera reached the region in 1889 he submitted a memorandum to the council of the Saxon Agricultural Association and called for a viticultural commission; the commission was created and he was appointed its president. From 1892 he worked for ten years with Friedrich Caspari, running courses and practical sessions, and from 1901 he represented the Saxon growers on the council of the Association. He held 20 ha at Mediaș, with vines and American hybrid rootstocks, and 70 ha at Crăciunel, land that after nationalisation became the basis of the research station at Blaj. He wrote leaflets on grafting, among them «Un nou proces de altoire» (1910, revised in 1928).

    Portrait
  • 1880–1940

    Michael Ambrosi jun.

    Nurseryman, director at Aiud and Buftea, author of «Der praktische Weinbauer», mayor of Mediaș

    Michael Ambrosi jun. (1880–1940) attended the Agricultural School in Mediaș (1894–1897), the dairy school at Sárvár (1897–1898) and the viticultural academy at Budafok, where he graduated in 1903. In 1902 he took the initiative to buy the property at Aiud, named «Ambrosi, Fischer & Co.» in 1905 and managed by him from 1912; in 1906 he published «Der praktische Weinbauer», which went through three editions and a Romanian version at Craiova in 1913. From 1907 he was partner and director of Prince Știrbey's nurseries at Buftea, with 40 ha of rootstock vines, 12 ha of grafted-vine school and 8–10 million vines a year. In 1919 he took over the Gräfenberg vineyards, in 1924 he moved to Mediaș, and in the 1920s he made the clonal selections from which the name Fetească Regală probably derives. He was mayor of Mediaș from 1933.

    Portrait
  • 1895–1974

    Dr. Alfred Ambrosi

    Lawyer, winegrower, curator of the Evangelical Church in Mediaș

    Dr. Alfred Ambrosi (1895–1974) completed the Stephan Ludwig Roth high school and then went to the front as an artilleryman in the First World War. After being wounded and gassed he read law at Cluj-Napoca and took his doctorate in 1921; he then deepened his knowledge of viticulture at the Agricultural University in Berlin and at the university of commerce. He worked for several years for Hugo Stinnes in Hamburg, then for the same employer in Romania. In 1927 he took over the estates at Crăciunel, where he farmed the vineyards by the most modern methods and became known for his range of wines and for his work in the cellar. The export of rootstocks brought him international recognition, especially through the «Ambrosi-special» selection and through papers at international viticultural congresses. In 1942 he became curator of the Evangelical Church in Mediaș, until his emigration to Germany. He died in Munich in 1974; his advertisements for Transylvanian wine appeared in the German press in 1967, 1971 and 1972.

    Portrait
  • 1925–2012

    Hans Ambrosi

    Director of the Hesse state vineyards — Kloster Eberbach; wine writer

    Hans Ambrosi (1925–2012) took his baccalaureate at the Brukenthal high school in Sibiu in 1942, immediately before being called up and sent to the Russian front. After the war he left for Germany for good in 1947 and studied agronomy at Stuttgart-Hohenheim between 1948 and 1951, taking his doctorate two years later. He worked at the research institute for grafted vines at Geisenheim, then as a research assistant at the pomology institute at Stuttgart-Hohenheim. In 1954 he went to South Africa, where he headed the viticulture section of Stellenbosch University and laid the foundations of the Nietvoorbij institute. From 1966 he was director of the Hesse state vineyards at Kloster Eberbach, where he restored the monastery and initiated the Rheingau Music Festival. He retired in 1990 and published more than sixty books; in 2001 he received the Cultural Prize of the Transylvanian Saxons.

    Portrait
  • 1858–1935

    Friedrich Caspari

    Pioneer of replanting, collaborator of the Ambrosi family, state commissioner for phylloxera

    Friedrich Caspari (1858–1935) is the other pioneer of Europe's replanting with grafted vines, alongside Michael Ambrosi sen. He trained at the viticultural school near Vienna — Klosterneuburg — and returned to Transylvania in 1892, when he was appointed state commissioner for the fight against phylloxera. In the same year he began his collaboration with Michael Ambrosi sen., with numerous courses and practical sessions held together for ten years. The family brochure describes a division of spheres of influence: Caspari worked mainly to the west — Transylvania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Russia — and a little in Wallachia, where he was director of Prince Știrbey's nurseries at Drăgășani, with a nursery at Joita near Bucharest. Ambrosi worked to the east and south, and later across the ocean. The life dates used here do not appear in the family brochure.

    Portrait
  • The Ambrosi archive

    Barbu Știrbey

    Prince, owner of the nurseries at Drăgășani and Buftea

    Barbu Știrbey appears in the Ambrosi family's sources as a prince and the owner of the nurseries at Drăgășani and Buftea. For him Michael Ambrosi jun. planted a ten-hectare orchard at Buftea in 1904, which reached 50 ha by 1909, and looked after 30 ha of apricots and plums; from 1907 he was partner and director of the princely nurseries. Buftea also had 40 ha of rootstock vineyard and 12 ha of grafted-vine school, with an irrigation system supplying roughly three million litres a day, and its workers were trained at Aiud.

    Portrait
  • The Ambrosi archive

    Josef Fischer

    Partner in the firm «Ambrosi, Fischer & Co.» at Aiud

    About Josef Fischer the sources of this dossier preserve almost nothing: no date, no portrait, no letter. His name survives in the firm «Ambrosi, Fischer & Co.» at Aiud, Alba county, whose autumn 1936 catalogue — printed at Aiud in September — mentions him only in the letterhead, beside the telegraphic address «Ambrosi-Fischer Aiud», telephone no. 22 and CEC account no. 43.026. The firm presents itself as a member of the General Association of Romanian Nurserymen and notes that it has existed «for over 35 years», which places its beginnings before 1901. The 1936–1937 catalogue lists fruit trees, roses, American rootstocks and grafted vines, among them Fetească Regală. That is all: a firm's name, a nursery and a catalogue.

    Portrait
Pitz