Bulgaria’s wine’s roots can be traced back in history to ancient Thrace and the Greek god of wine Dionysus.
The territory occupied by Bulgaria today was one of the regions where many wine traditions were founded during this period of the Hellenistic world. The cultured vine is said to have first been grown in Central Asia. The earliest traces of its origin within what is now Bulgaria go back 3000 years.
The Ottoman Empire ruled Bulgaria between the 15th and 19th centuries. This proved to be a disastrous period for wine making. However wine consumption within this period survived because it was considered to be a very important aspect of the Christian traditions within the empire. Wine producing also survived.
Bulgaria’s liberation in 1878 found the wine industry in a fairly good condition. Statistics indicate that there were nearly 50 000 ha of vineyards in the country.
Foreigners that visited the country in its first years as a free state recorded their impressions of the Bulgarian indigenous grape varieties such as Mavrud, Pamid and Misket.
During the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Bulgarian wine industry started to grow through the introduction of the vine and wine co-operatives.
The first to be established was in Suhindol, which later became the national model for other wineries to follow. Suhindol was based on a business concept that was adopted from southern France.
Most of the co-operative projects were built through Austrian and other western European expertise. The average winery capacity levels ranged from 500 to 1500 tons.
The 1930s was a period when most wine production was of an indigenous character. However, the premium European varieties were starting to make an appearance with the likes of Cabernet Sauvignon and Riesling.
Within the period where Bulgaria was behind the Berlin wall, wine making was consolidated, monopolised, and turned into a state industry. Its target market was restricted to the Eastern Bloc.
It was in the 1960s and 1970s that the mass production of prestigious red varieties started to hit the international markets.
The global consumption of Bulgarian white wine products has been less evident in with varieties such as Muskatt Ottonel, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Tramminer.
After the 1989 political change in Bulgaria and towards the end of the 1990s, the state monopoly of the wine industry ended. This resulted in the privatisation of all the wine cellars.
Bulgaria has more than 80 industrial wineries, which currently have an output of between 1000 and 60 000 tons. The wineries cover over 97 000 ha.
The current trends are leaning towards a gradual increase in what are known as the international grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and Tramminer. The red wine plantations of Cabernet, Merlot, Mavrud, Gamza and the broad vine from Melnik are also on the increase.
Bulgaria’s wine industry currently accounts for 30 per cent of the country’s aggregate farm exports to the European Union. Bulgarian wines are sold in the UK, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, the US, Canada, Japan among others.
The largest market is the UK, which accounts for 25 per cent of exports.
