Wine Time – 11th September

A bit of a slow start today, even by Red Dwarf standards, mainly due to a late night last night where we entertained ourselves into the wee small hours when we discovered we could make shadow puppets on the blackout blinds.  Using a variety of household objects, including Yoda, we created a series of amusing (to us anyway) scenes which we photographed, artistically of course!  As the evening wore on and the rakia flowed the scenes became ever more lewd.  What a surprise 😀

So it wasn’t until after lunchtime when we set off for the Orbelus winery on our trusty bikes.  After a short cycle ride we arrived at the impressive building which is designed like a huge barrel half buried in the ground.  We parked up our bikes and were greeted by Pieter who took us on a tour of the facilities.  From the arrival of the grapes, refrigerated storage, pressing, fermentation, low temperature filtration, bottling, corking and labelling; everything was explained in enough detail to make it interesting.  We asked plenty of questions and Pieter usually knew the answer.  We were surprised that they used French oak barrels to ferment some batches of wine in as well as for the maturing process.  Orbelus prides itself on making some of its wines completely organically and has won both silver and gold medals in this category at a prestigious French wine makers competition.

After the tour we went up to the tasting room and elected to go for the 8 leva package which allows you to taste three different wines.  We tried two whites; a Chardonnay Viognier blend a Chardonnay Pinot Gris blend and a Melnik, a red made from the local grape variety of the same name.  I liked all of them whilst Jules was less keen on the Chardonnay Viognier.  During the tasting we chatted with Pieter about the winery and its wines (although he admitted he was more of a beer and rakia man) but also his views on the current situation in Bulgaria.  In his opinion the government is corrupt, with politicians siphoning off money from the EU which was meant for improvement projects and people were leaving Bulgaria in their droves because wages were low and they could get paid up to three times as much for doing the same job elsewhere in Europe.

After an enjoyable hour or so we left with a bottle each of the Melnik and the Chardonnay Viognier and also a bottle of their rosé, which we hadn’t tasted but looked nice.  We had planned to visit another winery a couple of miles away but having already consumed the best part of a bottle between us – Pieter wasn’t stingy with the measures and neither Jules nor I used the small bucket provided, presumably for spitting – we decided discretion was the better part of valour and headed back to Red Dwarf to relax and plan our return to Greece.

Nazdráve,

Lee.