I will be attending a wine tasting tonight at the Bulgarian Consulate in New York featuring wines from Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. The event is free and open to the public. I found out about it on localwineevents.com, a great website with listings of wine tastings, dinners and classes in cities across the U.S. and around the world.
I’ve tasted wines from Greece and Turkey before, but I’m looking forward to tasting wines from Bulgaria for the first time. Bulgaria is the oldest documented wine producing country in the world, with the wines of ancient Thrace praised by Homer in both the Illiad and the Odyssey. From the website bulgariancoast.com:
The climate in the northern part of the country is temperate with cool winters and hot summers. In the south it is milder due to the influence of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Hilly terrain creates ideal micro-climates, which combined with good quality soil produces good conditions for growing high quality grapes. The best wines are produced from the Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon varieties, sometimes blended with local grapes including Gamza, which produces a light bodied red wine good for simple fare, and Mavrud, a full bodied, spicy red. Whites include Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Riesling as well as local grapes such as Misket, Ottonel, and Dimiat.
I’ll report back on the tasting later in the week. Until then, as they say in Bulgaria, dovijdane (good-bye) for now.