Vineyards in Brda, Slovenia
Wines from the heart of Europe and onwards towards its eastern edge are barely known in the UK but there’s so much to discover for the adventurous wine drinker. Wine here is built on a on deep authentic roots, certainly going back to Thracian, Illyrian and Celtic tribes nearly 3,000 years ago and possibly much longer, as there’s evidence of grape growing from Neolithic times. Indeed, the world’s oldest winery (around 6,000 years old) lies on the eastern edge of the region – the eerie and fascinating Areni-1 cave in Armenia’s highlands close to its top wine region of Vayots Dzor.
Indigenous Žilavka grapes grow in vineyards of stony limestone karst in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In today’s search for authenticity in what we eat and drink, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and its neighbours have so much to offer and of course what really matters is how the wines taste today. Three decades of independence have seen the development of a private, smaller scale but better wine industry which has undergone a complete revolution in quality. And the best wines today are simply world class (demonstrated by two recent best-in-show winners from the region at Decanter World Wine Awards: St Andrea’s superb Nagy-Eged Bikavér 2017 from Hungary in 2021 and the amazing Vinčić Grašac from Serbia in 2023. And there’s an honourable roster of numerous gold
