Crusades conducted in terms of mass religious or political movements are not a part of today’s world, but are now rather conducted as an act of personal ambition for many individuals, who are keen to discover the secrets of the world and the enigmas of both their everyday life and career.
While many may still be searching for the Holy Grail, or for the proper approach to build and sustain a marriage, or whatever other challenges the fast changing pace of humanity poses, Filip Harmandjiev, head of Damianitza winery, is focused on the noble cause of finding the Bulgarian icon wine and on becoming the first one to sell it abroad.
Harmandjiev told Vintellectual he believes that today, Bulgarian-produced wines are hardly reaching the ultra-premium category.
“The perfect Bulgaria wine, the one that will be the icon, should have the potential for ageing with its density and structure. However, the most important thing is that it will be valued not here in this country, but abroad,” he says.
The icon will be a limited series wine, as “deficit dictates the high price” and will conquer the hearts of sommeliers and wine critics.
Although Harmandjiev and his Damianitza winery have not yet found their Holy Grail in viniculture, one cannot deny that there is nothing else that they have been searching for in the past several years. During this period, Damianitza has become one of the most popular wine cellars in Bulgaria and has managed to firmly set foot on the European market.
“Damianitza is quite popular in Bulgaria and enjoys some of the nicest critic reviews in the media, I have to admit,” says Harmandjiev.
A little trouble though, he adds, is that, since the company is concentrated on making high quality and more expensive wines, it is very difficult to sell them abroad. Nevertheless, they are changing the situation, and now Damianitza can write home about penetrating solvent markets such as Germany, where they are represented by one of the leading firms in the sector, Schlumberger. As a result, Damianitza has discovered Germany to be a very good market for its top products - No Man’s Land, Red Dark and Uniqato, all made from unique Bulgarian vine varieties.
It’s the vine types, especially the solely Bulgarian ones, that Harmandjiev and Damianitza place such a high value on. Their high-quality wines are made of either Shiroka Melnishka Loza (wide Melnik vine-leaf) or Rubin (ruby).
“Rubin is the Bulgarian variety that has the largest potential to become popular all over the world and it has the marketing force to turn into the vine-type for which this country will be known globally,” Harmandjiev says.
He admits that the largest volumes are sold from world varieties like Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and other originally French varieties. However, in his view, Bulgaria has the chance to successfully promote its unique Rubin, Mavrud and Melnik varities. Sadly, the latter of these, which is of super taste and quality, can only be grown in southwestern Bulgaria, and therefore only limited quantities of it can be offered to the market.
Harmandjiev’s pride lies with No Man’s Land, a wine they first marketed in 2001, which has won some unexpected recognition.
“This wine sells extremely well in Bulgaria and it enjoys some serious success in Germany, as well as in Denmark, the Czech Republic and others,” Harmandjiev says.
And the big surprise is that No Man’s Land popularity has come as a result of not only the good interrelation of price and quality, but also of the strong story behind its name. The grape is grown on territory which in the past separated Bulgaria from its southern neighbours, Greece and Turkey, and was divided into two parts.
The first zone of restriction from Bulgaria was a 12-km-wide strip for which a special pass from the authorities was required in communist times. Beyond this was an electric fence, which was activated every time it was touched by a living creature. This marked the start of the next five-km of strip of land, which reached the border proper.
This was called No Man’s Land and was used as a buffer zone between the socialist and capitalist worlds.
It was a place of danger for those who dared to try to escape in pursuit of a better life outside the socialist countries. The complete absence of human beings and industrial activity has resulted in this area becoming an environmental paradise with no pollution, and preserved wildlife. Nowadays the area is a home to excellent quality vines, which bask in the sun of southwestern Bulgaria. It is hard to believe that a better wine could be produced than that of the vineyards in this No Man’s Land - a wine with a sad story, but with a future full of spirit and adventure.
Speaking of the southwestern part of Bulgaria, it is a region which has many traditions in vine-growing and wine-making. But what is most important for it is that it has naturally formed as a wine region without being administratively shaped by the state. One wonders why this region is not heavily advertised throughout the world as it could enjoy some serious popularity.
“We always point out our region when we sell our wines, but we could never actually advertise the entire area. This is not subject to the efforts of a single company, but should be state policy or at least a joint effort of all wine producers from the region,” Harmandjiev says. He also points out that he is no supporter of the administrative shaping of wine regions, as “this is a historic process and should happen naturally”.
He believes in wine tourism, and considers it an important step towards popularising Bulgarian wines and wine industry. In this department, Damianitza is not doing mass tours, but rather offers visits to its production facilities for true wine lovers and people who want to learn how the No Man’s Land, or Red Dark or Uniqato are “secretly” produced.
Harmandjiev makes a distinction between what he calls “leisure” wine tours and “knowledge” wine tours. He adds that Damianitza is focused on the knowledge tours, where, in the proper atmosphere, they can allow customers to smell, taste and see the Melnik wine and the process, which turns the grape into the “elixir of life”.
And another thing: “You cannot have wine tourism if your wines are not good,” Harmandjiev says and points to the fact of how difficult it has been in Bulgaria in the pastdecade or more to control the quality of wine.
Despite proposals to put quality control into the hands of the sector and its organisations, Harmandjiev strongly believes that this is a responsibility that should be fully assumed by the state.
“And countries like Germany and Austria should serve as models to us because the authorities there have managed to create a perfectly working monitoring system,” he says.
Harmandjiev recalls the wine crisis in Austria, when the industry was brought to a standstill in 1985 in a matter of days when Glycol (a poisonous chemical used as antifreeze) was discovered in bottles of wine. The accident prompted the state to introduce Draconian laws, under which today each bottle of Austrian wine is tasted by controlling authorities.
Harmandjiev says that quality wine of clear origin, and proper marketing strategies, can boost the image of Bulgarian wine all over the world and return its glory from the 1980s. This was the time when Bulgarian wine products enjoyed incredible popularity in the UK for example.
“There is no UK citizen that does not remember Bulgarian wine from that time, but there is no single person among them that would not say: ‘and it was cheap!’,” Harmandjiev says.
In his view, the challenge for Bulgaria today is to change this perception and to develop categories of higher pricing, and this is the direction in which Damianitza has pledged to exert most of its efforts.
