Discover the Wines of Macedonia

Does Macedonia make wine? Of course, it does. Perhaps the most famous Macedonian of them all, Alexander the Great, had his own wine servant. That's right, he had a servant whose sole functions were to make sure that Alexander had wine and to serve it to him. 

Imagine that.

Today, as one of the former Yugoslublics, as my son used to call them (nations or republics that came about from the breakup of Yugoslavia after the death of Jozef Tito, Macedonia is a smallish (far, far larger than the countries we have visited the last few days) nation just to the north of Greece. The most important wine region in Macedonia is Povardarie in the north central part of the country, so let's go there. 

Sitting in the Vardar River valley in the foothills of Baba Mountain, Povardarie is known for its scenic beauty and its local wine. People hike there and people make wine there. As far as I know, that's all they do in Povardarie (I'm sure the locals would dispute this).

The area in and around Povardarie is blessed with intense sunshine during the growing season. On the east side of Baba Mountain, it's shielded from the rains coming from the west yet is exposed to both morning sun from the east and afternoon sun from the southwest. With a climate that is neither quite warm enough to be classified as Mediterranean nor cool or snowy enough to be continental, all that sunshine allows the Povardarisch to grow warm weather Cabernet Sauvignon, cooler weather Chardonnay, and some local grapes. Let's taste the most important of those grapes, at least to the Povardarisch, the indigenous Vranec.

Do you like Primitivo or Zinfandel? Then, you will probably like Vranec as well. While nobody is certain which is which, it is thought that Vranac is a parent of those two essentially identical grapes. 

Vranec is one of those utility words in the Macedonian language. Translated literally, it can be a black stallion, a raven, or just deep dark black. How exciting would that be? Imagine being told, in Macedonian of course, to turn around to see the Vranec and not know whether you would see a wild horse or Poe's favorite bird.

The wines themselves are a deep, dark, purple, almost inky. Expect dark fruit on the nose and full body. When young, for whatever reason, and somewhat contrary to the color, expect ripe strawberry on the palate. But, as the Vranec ages, expect a distinct migration to a sort of cocoa powder with dark fruit undertones.

Pair Vranec with meat --red meat, wild game, barbeque, and smoked meat, particularly the sausages of eastern Europe.