site.btaKordopulov House: Live Wine Offered by Melnik's Largest and Oldest Winery

BTA will present dozens of Bulgarian wineries in the New BG WINE Leads the Way series ahead of the 9th UN Global Conference on Wine Tourism, which will be hosted in Plovdiv. The forum is organized by the Ministry of Tourism in partnership with the UN World Tourism Organization.

The Kordopulov House in Melnik is home to the town's largest and oldest winery, around 270 years old, according to manager Krasimir Spasov. The winery preserves nearly 300-year-old production methods without preservatives or modern technology, maintaining the authenticity of its craft. 

Visitors tend to favour traditional red varieties. Guests can sample the increasingly popular live wine, which retains the natural flavours and qualities of the grapes without stabilization, requiring special storage conditions.

Wine is produced from roughly four hectares of the estate's own vineyards, primarily the traditional Shiroka Melnishka, or Broadleafed Melnik, grape, along with Rubin, Melnik 55 and small quantities of Muscat. Wine is aged in large 20-ton barrels placed in tunnels built into the walls over 12 years, spanning around 200 metres in length.

Built in 1754, the Kordopulov House is the largest Revival-period house in Bulgaria and the Balkans, recognized as a cultural monument and listed among the country's 100 national tourist sites. The three-storey building houses the winery in its lowest level, with fermentation rooms.