Bulgarian Wines
Bulgaria is a timeless country located at the crossroad between Europe and Asia, nestled between Greece, Turkey, Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. Bulgaria is one of the oldest wine producing areas in the world with evidence of wine production dating back to 4000 BC. The wine making tradition in the country continued through the intervening centuries. The Bulgarian wine industry peaked in the 1970’s when Bulgaria was one of the world’s largest exporters of wine and declined after the fall of communism in the 1990’s. Following Bulgaria’s accession to the EU in 2007, a number of small and medium-sized boutique wineries began to appear on the Bulgarian wine map. There are 262 wine producers spread out over Bulgaria‘s five wine regions. The quality of their work is acknowledged by the fact that Bulgarian wines are the most awarded wines in Central and Eastern Europe. Much of the wine produced in Bulgaria today is made using internationally recognizable grape varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay, which are easy to market and sell in England and in other European countries. Native grapes have been slowly losing vineyard acreage, but some older producers still make interesting red wines from the local Mavrud, Melnik, Gamza and Rubin grapes. Bulgaria has some exciting prospects in front of it and is gaining reputation as a producer of high quality affordable wines. If the process continues uninterrupted and there is no alternative, the prediction is that Bulgarian wines will get more and more competitive on the basis of high quality and moderate prices.