BR Exclusive! Isarescu’s vineyard family business posts record revenue, but lower profit and higher debt in 2017

Romania’s central bank governor Mugur Isarescu owns a vineyard in Dragasani, Valcea County, and its family business expanded last year. Casa Isarescu, the governor’s family brand well known in Romania for its Cramposie Selectionata or Negru de Dragasani wines, registered record high turnover and growing number of employees.

Măr SRL (meaning ‘apple’ in Romanian), the company which runs Isarescu’s vineyard in Dragasani, posted a turnover of RON 3.34 million (EUR 731,520) in 2017, up 27.6 percent compared with 2016, but its net profit declined by 28 percent, to RON 236,769 (EUR 51,830), according to the Finance Ministry data.

Isarescu’s family business employed 21 persons on average in 2017, up from 18 in the previous year.

The 2017 balance sheet of Măr SRL shows that total revenue rose by 22.1 percent last year to RON 3.73 million, while total expense grew by 29.6 percent to RON 3.44 million.

The business expansion came with a cost: the total debt of Măr SRL soared by 66 percent last year, from RON 1.88 million in December 2016 to RON 3.11 million at the end of 2017.

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Isarescu’s family business

Set between the rolling hills of Dragasani, one of the most well-known winemaking Romanian regions, Casa Isarescu welcomes visitors with six rooms and traditional homemade dishes from the famous cuisine of the region of Oltenia.

That and plenty of wine, as Casa Isarescu is the vineyard built by the governor of the BNR Mugur Isarescu.

After taking a nosedive during the communist regime, winemaking in Romania as revived by several private investments in old or new wineries in Romania’s historic winemaking regions.

Among them, that of the governor of Romania’s central bank is a passion project started in 2003 that today produces 150,000 bottles a year and welcomes visitors in an idyllic setting.

Property of the longest serving Governor worldwide and his family, Ileana Isarescu and Lacramioara Isarescu, it is managed by his son, architect Costin Isarescu.