Balkan Wine Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria

Published: July 20, 2022

The summer of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, is filled with festivals and events. For wine-lovers, the most important of them is the annual Balkan Wine Festival, that is organised in the city center. In June 2022 we got to participate the 11th Balkans International Wine Festival and can warmly recommend the event! In this post we tell a bit about the wine culture of the Balkans, introduce the concept of the BIWCF competition and festival, and share pictures from the Balkan Wine Festival 2022.

Read also: Sofia introduction (from our last visit in 2019)

Wine-making has long traditions in the Balkans

The Balkan wine-makers are proud of the ancient wine history of the area, as well as of the local grape varieties. The yearly wine production of the Balkans is nearly 1.8 million tons, witch makes it the 5th biggest producer in the world, after Italy, France, Spain and the USA. During the past two decades, the quality of Balkan wines has taken big steps forward, and nowadays wines from the Balkans are becoming more and more popular globally.

Grapes were known to people in the Balkan Peninsula already in the neolithic times, and the Romans set the foundation of the European wine culture in the Balkan area, by growing vines, classifying grapes and the characteristics of different varieties, and by identifying pests and diseases, as well as the features of different soils. In medieval times, especially the monasteries and the ruling dynasties developed vine-growing further. During the Ottoman period the importance of wine production decreased, and during the Yugoslavian times the focus of production was more on quantity than quality.

In the present day Balkans the appreciation of local wine and grapes has risen significantly, and the wine-makers produce delicious wines out of both local grapes and international varieties. I’m not going to get started with introducing the different grape varieties, wine types and brands in this post, but let’s just say that there are delicacies from very light and crispy whites to very intense and bold reds, and after tasting quite a few Balkan wines, we are impressed by the quality and taste of them.

The Balkans International Wine Competition and Festival

As the name implies, the Balkans International Wine Competition and Festival (BIWCF) consists of two parts, that in fact are two separate events. Before the Wine Festival in Sofia, where the best wines of Balkans are announced and rewarded, there is a separate wine competition. In summer 2022 the competition was organized in the island of Salamina in Greece, in the beginning of June. The Wine Competition is an event for wine experts and connoisseurs, Masters of Wine, wine merchants and wine journalists around the Europe and beyond to gather together to taste and judge the best wines of the Balkans. For the wineries it is a wonderful chance to market their products, and an opportunity to spread the word about Balkan wines and regional grapes in general.

11th Balkan Wine Festival 2022

The 11th Balkan Wine Festival was organized in 16-18 June 2022, outside the iconic National Palace of Culture (NDK) in Sofia. This open-air place has been the venue for the festival for several years, and it’s a lovely setting for organizing such event. One of the goals of the festival was to attract new audiences and especially young adults around their thirties, to whom wine already is an important part of social life, but who don’t necessarily know a lot about the local wine culture yet.

The festival area, “wine city”, was filled with wine and food booths, but also a lot of other program for the audience to enjoy. The highlights of the festival included wine tastings from more than 100 wineries from the Balkan countries (from Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Turkey, Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Kosovo), Balkan Food Corners with famous chefs and a stage with musical performances and a thematic stand-up comedy shows. In the opening night of the festival there was the Award Ceremony, “Balkan Wine Oscars 2022”, where the Grand Trophy and Trophy winners were announced.

To enter the festival area, there was an entrance fee of BGN 20 (roughly 10 euros) per one day, 25 for two days or 30 for all three days. The fee included a wine glass and tasters from all the wineries, so it was possible to taste a huge amount of different wines during the weekend, including the winner wines of the competition.

The Grand Trophy of the BIWC 2022 was given to Bela Voda White 2021 by Tikves winery from North Macedonia, and the Best Winery in the Balkans Trophy to Suvla winery from Turkey. From each country there was one wine selected as the Best of Show – from Bulgaria this was Zelanos Pinot Noir Rose 2021 by Zelanos Winery. You can take a look at all the results of the Balkans International Wine Competition 2022 (and the previous years too!) in the balkanswine webpage.