The Cricova winery chief who testified to the vineyard destruction of Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign
'On weekends they forced us out with axes to chop the vines,' he recalled, and those who tried to protect the vineyards got 14–15 years in prison.
A Moldovan winemaker and industrial manager, he led the Cricova wine combine as director general for 29 years, from 1987 to 2016. As chief engineer during Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, he testified that workers were forced to chop vines with axes on weekends and that those who tried to protect the vineyards received 14–15 years in prison, providing the most vivid ground-level account of the vineyard destruction.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1973Technologist, Sîngerei winery
- 1974–1975Director, Drăgănești winery
- 1975–1978Komsomol, Lazovsky (Sîngerei) district committee
- 1978–1983Administrative manager, CC of Moldovan Komsomol
- 1983–1985Instructor-controller, CC of Moldovan CP
- 1985–1987Chief engineer, Cricova winery
- 1987–2016Director General, Cricova wine combine
Related historical events
Privatizing Cricova and guarding a national brand
Valentin Bodiul was a nephew of Moldovan Communist Party First Secretary Ivan Bodiul. Rather than trading on his uncle's patronage he rose from the winemaking floor: he entered the Cricova winery as chief engineer in 1985 and reached the director general's post in 1987, not yet thirty. Over the next 29 years he steered Cricova through the collapse of the USSR and the 1991 turn to a market economy. The enterprise moved from state central planning to a joint-stock company, with Bodiul himself becoming its owner and leading the privatization.
Under his management Cricova grew from a state winery into Moldova's flagship wine brand. The roughly 120 kilometres of limestone galleries housing the cellars were cultivated as the tourist attraction known as the 'underground wine city', and in 2004 the enterprise as a whole was declared part of Moldova's national cultural heritage. For this work Bodiul received Moldova's highest state honor, the Order of the Republic, and in Russia the prestigious Lev Golitsyn medal for winemaking.
His later years carried a shadow too. In December 2017 the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office arrested him and placed him on the wanted list for abuse of power, but by 2019 the investigation concluded that no offense had been committed; the case was dropped and prosecutors publicly apologized for the illegalities of the previous administration. Bodiul remained the face of Cricova and a symbolic figure of Moldovan winemaking until his death from COVID-19 in 2020.