National Wine Chamber President: Quality of Bulgarian Wine at World Level

Jerusalem, 3 May, 2023 (TPS) -- SOFIA, 03.05.2023 (BTA)
Much can be said about the quality of Bulgarian wine. Bulgaria is at the world level in quality, but in recent years both the industry and the state have done nothing for it, it is not supported in any way, said Yordan Chorbadzhiyski, commercial director of the Black Sea Gold Pomorie winery and chairman of the board of the National Vine and Wine Chamber (NVWC) in Bulgaria, during a discussion on the quality of Bulgarian wine at the BTA National Club Wednesday in Sofia. This was the fourth consecutive roundtable organized by the Foundation “For Achievable Quality Food”, this time in cooperation with the NVWC.

According to Chorbadzhiyski, in many cases Bulgarian wines are much better than imported ones. “We all have laboratories, every batch goes through laboratories. Regarding imported wines, as a branch organization we take wine at random and test it in our laboratories. In case of discrepancies, we report to the Executive agency on vine and wine (EAVW)” he explained.

The term “quality”, when talking about wine, should be used carefully, as there are many different tastes, clarified Dr. Hristo Spasov, Head of the Department of Wine and Beer Technology, Deputy Rector for Teaching and Academic Staff of the University of Food Technology (UFT) in Plovdiv.

“Safety and quality are two completely different things – in the last few years the deviations in inspections have been mainly related to quality, but I have no memory of us having had an unsafe product, and I have been with the agency since 2001” said Eng. Daniela Furtsova, Director General of the Directorate General “Control in the wine sector” at the EAVW. Asked about the control of homemade wine and why it is allowed to be sold everywhere, she pointed out that, again, whistleblowers have to come forward and they are key.

EAVW Secretary General Nina Filipova added that the Agency carries out controls on a planned and unplanned basis, following signals, relying heavily on those from NGOs.

“We produce fantastic wines, I say this from my long experience. The people who produce the wine in Bulgaria are true professionals,” said Ventsislav Lyubenov from Villa Justina, adding that the Bulgarian state usually did not help and at times even hindered the industry’s development. Lyubenov explained that Bulgarian wine is expensive, because the creation of 1 acre of vineyard currently costs about BGN 4,000. He said that in some countries the subsidies for 1 hectare are EUR 400, while in Bulgaria they are only EUR 15.