Where to find Churchill's favorite wine by Leah Larkin Bulgarian wine may not be as well known as wines from France and Italy, yet Winston Churchill was a fan. He ordered 500 liters of the country's melnik wine every year, made from the country's very own grape, the broad leaf melnik. And Melnik is also the name of Bulgaria's smallest town, a popular tourist destination with Revival period houses surrounded by dramatic sand cliffs in odd forms. An ancient art
Winemaking in Bulgaria is no recent process, but rather dates back to the Thracians, before the Romans. In the Middle Ages, monks produced wine and built wine cellars in the cold crypts of their monasteries for storage. Despite strict Islamic laws, the wine tradition survived during the ruling of the Ottoman Empire. By the beginning of the 20th century, new ways of vine cultivation and production were developed, resulting in quality wines. Those wines were reserved for the Soviet elite during the "Iron Curtain" years when all wineries were taken over by the state and limited quantities of the best wine were exported to the Soviet Union. Limited edition
Mainly poor quality table wines were exported to Germany where the wine quickly gained a bad reputation. During the Gorbachev era, production was limited as part of the former Soviet leader's crack down against alcoholism. Today the wineries are back in private hands, production is booming, and the goal is to produce quality wines.
Bulgaria has five wine regions: northern, eastern, sub Balkan, southern, and southwestern. Melnik is in the southwest region, known for its Mediterranean climate. Melnik wines
After a tour of the town, we tried several local wines at the nearby Damianitza winery, including one called "No Man's Land." This comes from grapes now grown in the border territory between Greece and Bulgaria, once an area of fences and soldiers between the two worlds of socialism and capitalism, hence the name. The 2003 vintage we tasted was a blend of merlot and cabernet grapes. We also tried a Unigato Melnik 2003, a blend of the melnik broad leaf grape and cabernet sauvignon that had been aged for 10 months in Bulgarian and French barrels. And the Unigato Rubin 2004 is a blend of the syrah and nebbiolo grapes. Good prices
Even though I couldn't detect the flavors of "vanilla, coffee, spices, and blackberries" that our hostess pronounced were in these wines, I found the tastes excellent and bought several bottles, as did many others in our group. The wines are reasonably priced at the winery between $5 and $10 per bottle. We also went to the Todoroff winery in the southern region near Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second largest city. The grape of note here is the mavrud, which produces a rich, flavorful red wine. Prize-winning merlot
We tasted a 2004 Mavrud, a strong wine with an alcohol content of 13%. Our hostess said it could be stored from 10 to 15 years, but after aging for four or five years, the alcohol content jumps to 13.5%. She was especially proud of the Merlot Teres 2005 that won a silver medal at Vinalies Internationales in Paris this year, and the fact that the American magazine Wine & Spirit had included Mavrud Gallery 2003 in its 100 most ordered wines for 2006. Todoroff Wines, website: www.todoroff-wines.com
Available in the U.S. from Uniquato Inc., IL; e-mail: sikoninternational_inc@msn.com; website: www.europeanheritagewines.com. | 
