By Harry de Quetteville in Milestii Mici, telegraph.co.uk

The little-known wines of Moldova are taking on the ultimate challenge: winning over the connoisseurs of France. For the first time, thousands of bottles are being unpacked in Paris, as French wine dealers prepare to unleash the impoverished republic's vintages on sophisticated Gallic palates.

Moldova may be most notorious for the underworld traffic in sex slaves across the Balkans and throughout Russia and the Gulf. But now it hopes that opening its vast cellars filled with typically light, sharply fruity wines will start an altogether more salubrious trade.

"It is the first time we are importing these wines from Moldova," said Didier Vrignaud, a Parisian dealer. "They are absolutely unknown here, but we have tested them with many experts and we think they are good enough to stand up to the market."

While it is shockingly poor in many other respects, Moldova is extraordinarily rich in wine. Nowhere is that more evident than at Milestii Mici, home to the biggest wine collection in the world, where millions of bottles are stored in hundreds of miles of tunnels bored into an ancient quarry.

A trip into the huge lantern-lit cellar 250ft underground has to be made in a car, through tunnels wide enough for vehicles to pass. To each side, 1,300 massive oak barrels, as well as 2,200 stainless steel drums, contain the vinicultural heritage of a nation: 20 million litres of wine produced over the last 40 years.

In the heart of this underworld temple to the grape lies the so-called "Golden Collection": two million bottles, including a distinctively fruity red that Moldovans claim is a favourite of the British royal family. The winemakers at Milestii Mici say they have made several shipments of their 1986 Negru de Purcari to royalty. On the walls of one tasting room, a framed photograph of Prince Michael of Kent on a visit seems to bear them out.

Andrei Manciu, Milestii Mici's commercial director, claimed that "the Queen loves the Purcari" as he cradled a dust-covered bottle of the '86 vintage, which costs about £16. But a Buckingham Palace spokesman said yesterday that the royal household had received an unordered consignment of Moldovan wine out of the blue two weeks ago, which it considered to be a "gift".

Above ground, vineyards are everywhere fuelling an industry that has long filled glasses across the former Soviet Union. But a year ago a dispute with Russia brought Moldova's biggest export market crashing down.

"Russia said there was a problem with the quality, but the fault was not with us," said Mr Manciu. "We are a Moldovan state company and maybe there was politics involved. But we don't like to talk politics."

Now Moldova is turned its sights on Western Europe, confident its wines can carve out a reputation.