Sour Grapes For Bulgarian Wine Industry

Is this just typical of how things go sometimes in essence a great year for grape production and the market slumps! Like any business you take risks and luck plays it part as well. The only silver lining is that home-grown grapes used for domestic purposes will have good cause to celebrate and I am one of those who comes under that group. My wine is brilliant and rakia should reflect this as well when I distil some of the wine on the 10th November. It will be a boozy Christmas and New Year in front of thousands of wood-burning fires this winter.

This year's grape harvest in Bulgaria proved to be a bumper one but independent grape growers around the country say they will be in no mood to celebrate. Plenty of sun and just the right amount of rain have boosted the yield to well over 400,000 tonnes of grapes from 369,400 tonnes last year. And winemakers say the quality is excellent, too, with high sugar content, mouth-watering aroma and rich colour. Nevertheless, independent grape growers will not be cheering, because slumping wine sales are forcing major winemakers to cut back the volumes of grapes they traditionally purchase from them. And travelling in one of Bulgaria's wine-growing regions between the southern city of Plovdiv and nearby Assenovgrad, home to Mavrud, one of the most popular red grape varieties, one comes across scores of crates filled with grapes lining the roads, with makeshift "for sale" signs. "Do you want to buy some?" asks 65-year-old Elena Nikolova from the nearby village of Proslav, rather hopefully. "It's a nightmare," she huffs. "The wineries don't want to take it at all or try to buy it dirt cheap, so we're forced to try and sell the grapes by the roadside. But can you imagine how many people will really buy it to take home and make their own wine?"

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk