Of the viticultural varietals that used to typify near every sub-region of Bulgaria, only a handful remain. Those that subsist – namely mavroud for the larger market, followed by rubin and Melnik, but also pamid, gamza, otel, keratsouda, misket – have in recent years been somewhat overshadowed by more “European-pleasing” sorts, like cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc.
This might be changing. At the 2007 edition of the international wine fair Vinaria, held at International Fair – Plovdiv from March 28 to 31, it seemed that a small but growing number of producers were recognising the originality and marketing potential of what Bulgaria itself has to offer.
Now in its 15th year, Vinaria gathered about 550 exhibitors, of whom 203 were Bulgarian, from 36 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and the Republic of Korea. More than 20 000 guests were expected, including 2000 from abroad. Pavilions 10, 11, 12 and 13 hosted exhibition categories like wines and spirits, packaging, vine planting and growing supplies, and machinery, equipment and wine production supplies, with larger vats and tractors displayed in the courtyards.
Besides introducing industry players and the public to new products, the fair also has the goal of discerning the best Bulgarian wines, rakiyas and grape brandies. This was the first year that the scores of such evaluations were calculated with a computer.
Between February 27 and March 10, 15 judges tasted 752 entries from 49 firms. Still wine entries numbered 631, new-harvest (2006) wines numbered 449, from older vintages 189 wines competed, special wines numbered 24, and in the rakiya category, 97 entries faced off.
The Wine of the Year award certificates and the top award, the Golden Rhyton, were presented by Agriculture and Forestry Minister Nihat Kabil, International Fair – Plovdiv CEO Georgi Gergov and the National Wine and Vine Chamber CEO Nikola Nikolov at the Wine and Love, Love and Wine ball on March 28.
The most visited pavilion was probably number 13, where the stands representing various wine and spirits cellars invited attendees to sample their goods. Ranging from those set on getting their three leva entrance fee’s worth of imbibing to serious vinophiles and critics searching out top quality or the next big hit, people swirled, sniffed, sipped and spit through thousands of bottles.
One of the successes at this year’s Vinaria was the winery Terra Tangra, with eight gold and four silver medals awarded by the tasting committee.
Created in 2005 by Emil Zaichev and Robert Stanev, the cellar has quickly taken a foothold as one among the best Bulgarian producers, with most wines scoring more than 90 points on a 100-point Robert Parker-esque scale that the country has recently taken to following.
Zaichev and Stanev started planting their vineyards five years ago, and now have some 300 hectares. They’re of the French style, Zaichev explained to The Sofia Echo, like those of Pomerol. French technology also finds favour at Terra Tangra, which, he said, is expensive, but necessary to obtain the pinnacle of quality. From their 200 hectares of ready crop this year, they expect to harvest, all by hand, 500 tons of grapes, translating to 2500kg a hectare, or about a half kg of grapes a plant, a very small quantity. “That’s why we have very high quality,” he said.
Currently, they grow 12 varieties of red grapes, including mavroud, Melnik and rubin, and about half that of white.
At the Villa Vinifera stand, some of the history of Bulgarian wine and varietals was explained. After communism ended in 1989, many of the local sorts disappeared, because of difficult maintenance, sales representative Tashko Donchev said.
The country’s wine traditions go back centuries – when the Greeks came to Thrace, the Thracians were already fermenting grapes, earning them the nickname of “national drunks”. There are no records of how the Thracians made wine, but Villa Vinifera is making every effort to intuit their methods via the Greeks.
As in times past, Villa Vinifera ferments only in oak barrels ranging in size from 200 litres to 300 tons, followed by eventual transfer to smaller barrels for ageing. “The Thracians knew what they were doing – we’re trying to discover it,” Donchev said.
Focusing more on the home market is Zagreus (Zagrei in Bulgarian, the Thracian name for Dionysus), created by the Kostadinov family in 2004 with SAPARD financing. Dimitur Kostadinov, the winery’s director, told The Sofia Echo that 100 per cent of Zagrei’s grapes are grown without pesticides. Due to regulations and terminological technicalities, the wines cannot exactly be called organic, though in theory, they are. “We’re doing the maximum natural (possible),” Kostadinov said, “and we’re succeeding.” All the grapes are own-produced within one km of the winery.
The whole wine thing started about 10 years ago as something of a joke, he said, when the family decided to start growing grapes. Twenty-five decares became 50, and they now have 1200 decares. “We saw that growing grapes is a good business in Bulgaria,” he said, “and from this good business, we saw it would be good to make wine.”
Zagrei’s first wines resulted from the 2004 harvest. Kostadinov said that though growing pesticide-free grapes “really raises the price”, it’s worth it – and Zagrei’s wines prove this.
Award winner Villa Hissar Villa Lyubimets (silver medals for their chardonnay, 2005 rose, and femela merlot) also saw high interest at its stand. “I’ve tasted a number of things,” said national sales manager Irina Siderova, “and I think we’re competitive. Previous Vinarias were kind of a larger Vinprom thing, but now smaller producers are entering the arena.”
The Bulgarian arm of the French group Belvedere unites four local wineries – Domain Menada, Sakar, Oriachovitza, and the newly created Catherina – and two trading companies – Vinimpex and Belvedere Distribution.
Vinimpex marketing manager Galina Niforou found Vinaria to be successful so far – “We won the biggest prize (the only Golden Rhyton awarded at this year’s fair) for our Domain Sakar 2006 Cabernet Merlot blend,” she said, in addition to 17 other gold and silver medals. She was proud to note that elsewhere, Robert Parker has called their wines “incredible”. Their new cellar, Catherina, offers innovation in allowing customers to purchase the wine directly from the barrel. The cellar was named the best foreign investment by the fair jury.
Overall, she said that this year, she has observed an outflow of participating firms, because stands are becoming more expensive. (A stand is not required to participate in the judging competition.)
On the smaller side is the young winery Santa Sarah, started by Ivo Genowski. Soft treatment and primarily French oak characterise what are generally small batches of wine. In addition to its notable use of Bulgarian varietals like mavroud and rubin, Santa Sarah has also started to produce the first ice wine to be made from a red varietal in Bulgaria over the last 50 years. It was a joint project with Villa Lyubimets, and it is most definitely worth trying to obtain one of the 850 bottles produced.
Slivenska Perla was awarded the prize of best rakiya.
According to Vinaria publications, there are 27 000 wine grape growers in Bulgaria, and 138 winemakers.
