Author: Gergana Todorova
Wine is undoubtedly a vast topic. It is a relentless desire to discover new tastes and aromas, new experiences. Wine can evoke hidden emotions and forgotten memories. It is a provocation to ourselves, but it is also a mirror of our worldview. Wine culture means not just knowing the wine as a style, origin, technology, but to be able to easily navigate the abundance of wines, knowing our own preferences.
To get to know the wine and our taste, we must debunk some myths and prejudices.
"The good wine is the expensive one," is a statement you can often hear from wine snobs who want to be left alone in their circle of illusions. We need to know that good wine has a fair price, and everyone can set their own limits. The truth is that any wine that we combine with inappropriate food, or drink at an inappropriate temperature, or open too early or too late at a time when it is not yet ripe for drinking, or is no longer fit for consumption, would be expensive. That is why the best way to make reasonable purchase is to visit wine fairs and festivals, where for cheap entrance fee, we can try dozens of wines and find those that meet our preferences. There is no lack of such events in Plovdiv.
The festival culture of the city, in which the wine cellars fit more and more successfully, is starting to break another outdated model of thinking that wine is only for special occasions. No, it can be part of any ordinary dinner and meeting with friends. And it's time for restaurants in Plovdiv to meet this trend, offering a variety of quality and interesting wines in different styles, which are consumed not only with a serious dinner, but also as an aperitif.
Speaking of wine, we cannot ignore the food. The combination between food and wine can turn into a mini explosion of new and unexpected flavors. We have to follow certain rules in combining both, but we can part with one of the well-known clichés "White wine for fish and chicken, red wine for red meat". This statement, of course, is not wrong. It can guide us so that we do not fall into generally catastrophic combinations (tannin wine with oily fish, which will cause a metallic taste in our mouth). On the other hand, it can deprive us of unexpected combinations. And often, when we take the non-traditional path, we are led to much more interesting places.
The most emblematic variety for Plovdiv - Mavrud, is also crowned with some legends and myths. They bring color and have preserved important cultural and historical facts, intertwined in the love of Bulgarians for wine, dating back to antiquity. But we can safely part with one of the notions that Mavrud is a heavy, powerful, dense, "masculine" wine. In fact, grapes of this variety predetermine a style of wine that is lighter than what we know from the stories of our parents. And modern winemaking is showing better and better examples of the true face of Mavrud. It will be talked about it even more in October, when in Plovdiv (and not only) are the celebrations dedicated to the Day of Mavrud. The wine will be celebrated for the first time on October 26th.
The old Bulgarian varieties are what we should be proud of and what we should know and show to the world. But we must be careful with old wines. One of the strongest misconceptions is that the older a wine is, the better it is. It is good to know that over 90% of wines on the market are intended for consumption within a year or two. Wines that can mature for a long time have specific qualities that help them mature for 5, 10 or 15 years in a bottle, and to develop more complex tastes and aromas over time. In order to choose a wine with potential to be drunk on a certain occasion or anniversary, we must consult a wine specialist and visit a place where special attention is paid to storage conditions.
The most pleasant way to get to know the wine, to try different varieties and even to find wines in which to invest is by visiting different wine cellars. Do not succumb to the suggestion that wine tourism is only for people who already "know" wine. The wine is for everyone with an open mind and a constant search for adventure and new sensations. The easiest way to learn about it is to go to its home, meet its creators, feel their emotion and philosophy enclosed in a bottle of wine. And for us, living in Plovdiv, in the center of the largest wine region - the Thracian lowlands, the roads to wine are many.