Claudiu Necsulescu, a 38 year-old engineer, who used to deal with commerce, bought the former state-owned company Perla Tarnavei two years ago. The vineyard was but a heap of concrete that time, as nobody had invested a penny for many years.
With an initial investment of several million dollars, Necsulescu bought the bankrupted company, upgraded it and replaced the damaged vines and trees with young plants.
Necsulescu is now proud of having saved the whole Tarnave vineyard, which produces the famous Jidvei wine. He also provided jobs for 1,200 employees and paid more than 30 billion lei taxes to the state budget every year.
The former Perla Tarnavei SA company changed its name into Jidvei SRL. It is located on Valea Tarnavei Mici, in Alba county, within Tarnave vineyard, the largest in Transilvania.
Perla Tarnavei SA had been established in 1949 and the wines it produced were internationally awarded over the decades.
The company was harmed over the last communist years and the first eight after the Revolution. The state did not invest any money in technology and culture care and production consequently dropped to 1,200 kilos per one hectare in 1998, when the investor took over the company.
The technical manager, Vasile Orian, recollects that the 300 employees went through sad moments when they saw everything was falling apart around them.
"Almost 200 ha of vine were frozen, as we didn't have the money to perform the specific works of burying the vines in the ground during the winter.
The apple-trees did not make any fruit, also because we had no money to take care of the orchards. About half of the total culture surface existing in 1998, namely 667 ha of vine and 220 ha of fruit trees, had been seriously damaged. Almost no equipment worked properly.
The ground hadn't been fertilised since 1990, while the cultures hadn't been replaced and improved. The company hadn't paid its debts and could hardly pay salaries."
The company's owner says that he was quite scared at the beginning. "I expected 7-8 billion in losses during the first year. I lost 14 billion, but I didn't give up."
The investor powered the company with modern technology, new cars and replaced the old reservoirs to keep the wine. He acquired a new wine bottling line, besides the two existing ones, which he upgraded.
New cultures were planted, while other damaged ones were taken over for exploitation, so that the company currently owns more than 2,000 ha. Output increased from 1,200 kilos per ha to 7,600 kilos per ha. Another 900 workers were employed.
The company comprises one wine-production complex, two wine cellars, Baltaciu and Jidvei, and the section producing the sparkling wine Cetatea de Balta. The localities neighbouring the vineyard, Jidvei, Blaj and even Alba Iulia, also benefited from this investment as it gradually expanded.
The owner invested in schools, churches, fed the local budget with large amounts of money, so that the village came to be one of the richest in the country, having restored roads and patrimony buildings.
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