I never lived in Romania, but I did live in Bulgaria, just across the Danube, for a year or two. Much of Bulgaria's wine was beyond awful, so any wine from Bulgaria suffered from that reputation. The vineyards were often in terrible shape.

Your balcony looks quite unlike traditional balconies in that part of the world. I'd Google them and restore it to a traditional look.

In Bulgaria, 15 years ago, few of the contractors were at all professional, regardless of how spiffy their website or other marketing materials. They were talented amateurs who kluged things when they didn't know what to do, including re-wiring the furnace because they didn't understand the control panel. (It was an Italian furnace and Bulgarian is a Slavic language which uses the Cyrillic alphabet. So, you want someone to oversee the work whom you can be sure will make sure all the work is done to a decent standard.

PS: I would not trust AI to guess the age of your house. Talk to your neighbors. Find the local historian. There's probably a historical society or museum somewhere.

Where is the winery part? In the barn?

Yes! The grapes will be grown on the farmland behind the home, then processed in the barn and aged in one of the three cellars. We are building an outdoor dinning area for hosting lunch and wine tastings.

I hated the balcony too, and thankfully it is already gone. We know the house had an update in 1977, and think the balcony dated from that period. The age of the home is interesting -- it's roof is a concave double mansard. This is common among significant buildings in the cities, but I've never seen one in a village. AI pointed out the stone foundation, irregular bricks, unusually shaped roof and location all point to it being older than we originally thought. Hopefully, someone in the village can tell me the lore....

You have cellars under those buildings too?!?! Gosh. How big is the vineyard, an acre, half? Can't tell from the pic. What kind of grapes do you have in there? It does not look like there are any plants as in green on that field, but I figure that can't be the case and they must just be small.

My house, in Maine, was built in the early 1900s and has a stone foundation, as do most of the houses in the neighborhood, which was developed in the early 1900s. Your house might indeed date from the mid 1600s, but it might also be centuries younger.

The vineyard area is ~3/4 of an acre - it was previously used for farming. We will plant our own grape vines once we complete the remodel of the structures. The area is known for white wines, so we will plant sauvignon blanc, German (dry) riesling and Feteasca Alba. There are a few existing old grape vines in the courtyard that we will keep and experiment with. At the far end is an orchard, so we may also try our hand at some fruit wines/liqueurs.

We are not too worried about the home's age, other than to try to preserve it in a way that is appropriate for its history. Hopefully, the neighbors can tell us more. The seller was born in the village, but she has only been able to tell us about the previous owner, and not any history prior to that.

One of the Bulgarian whites I liked was a Muscat Ottonel.

Ah, ok. You aren't going to be making grape wine for a few years then. Since you already have fruit trees, those will be nice to work on winemaking with till your acreage is mature enough to start the bigger winemaking.

Gorgeous!!! When can I visit??!!! I’ll help with the grapes!💃🏻🍾🤗

Yes, it will be awhile. before we have commercial quanitiies of wine. Our backyard grapevines in California took 5 years to produce a substantial crop. In the meantime we will get the home ready to have visitors and see what we can make out of the unknown grapes currently growing in the courtyard and experiment with the fruit produced by the mature trees in the orchard. @sigrid We know Muscat well, as that is what we grow in California, @Shady We are looking forward to having guests and sharing our homestead with others.