corporations, insurance companies and banks such as the Franco-Romanian Railway Materials Company, the General Insurance Company of Bucharest, and the Steaua Română oil company. Amongst his lands included 200 hectares of vineyards. Reflecting his interest in the Romanian community of Transylvania, which at the time was part of the Austrian empire, Știrbey was member of the board of directors for the Transylvanian Association for Romanian Literature and the Culture of the Romanian People. Keenly interested in agrarian modernization, Știrbey founded an American style vine nursery at his Buftea estate, using the latest in Californian viticulture techniques to make his famous Știrbey wine. In a successful experiment, Știrbey was able to attach Romanian grapes to American rootstocks. He was the first to grow cotton and rice within Romania. Știrbey also set up on his Buftea estate a dairy farm, a mill and in 1902 founded a cotton factory. The "White Prince" was well known in Bucharest high society for the huge wine cellars under his house in Bucharest, from which he served the wines from his lands. The wines that Știrbey produced on his estate were well known in the 20th century, with the Orient Express carrying 'Dining Car Stirbey' and 'Muscat Ottonel Stirbey' wines. Baron Jakob Kripp, the husband of Știrbey's granddaughter, Ileana Stirbey, stated: "Barbu Stirbey carried on this legacy into the 20th century. He was an entrepreneur and very modern in his marketing, establishing a high-value brand for his wines. Putting the esteemed family name on the wine labels gave a guarantee of quality. He even hired a couple of young, creative Romanian artists to make a series of funny adverts for his wines." The British oenophilist Caroline Gilby described the Știrbey wines as becoming a very "strong brand" under the management of the "White Prince" who worked relentlessly from 1904 onward to promote his wines into becoming the best known wines of Romania. The National Liberal politician Ion G. Duca described Știrbey: "In a country of talkative people, I haven't met a quieter man, in a society concerned with obtaining effect I haven't seen a man displaying more modesty...Still, behind this banal appearance a tremendously interesting personality was hidden, with penetrating astuteness, exceptional ability and great ambition; a bizarre mixture of willfulness and laziness, decisiveness and fatalism, indifference and slyness. Brave, at times even daring, even though he preferred shadow to light, a lover of combinations, even