site.btaDositeevo Winery: Organic Bulgarian Wine Makes Inroads in Scandinavia with Natural Winemaking Tradition

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.

In 2025, Dositeevo Winery in the Harmanli region exported organic wine to Norway, where it was very well received. The winery’s owner, Yonko Gyudzhenov explained that the company has been working with Norwegian partners for years. Until now, however, it only exported grapes from its own vineyards, which were processed by partners there.

“There is a high wine consumption culture in Norway, and people are well-off. We believe there is a wide-open window for our production in Scandinavian countries, and we are also holding talks with Sweden,” Gyudzhenov said.

The winery started operations in 2022. “Until then we only produced grapes. We have 8 hectares of Cabernet Franc in the village area,” said chief winemaker Tihomir Gyudzhenov, son of the owner. “We decided to build on grape growing by creating a natural product from the organic grapes, wine produced through natural fermentation without artificial yeasts, enzymes, chemical stabilizers to prevent re-fermentation, or sulphites. Our goal was to continue the centuries-old tradition of the Thracians and our ancestors of natural wine-making, in which the processes occur entirely in a natural way,” explained the winemaker, who specialized in New Zealand and in Sicily, Italy.

The wine series, produced as red and rose, is named Tokmakli after the area where the vineyard is located. Both the vineyard and the wine are certified organic. This means that no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides are used in cultivation. The controlled yield of 2.5-3 t/ha, lower than the usual, also guarantees high quality of the final product. 2025’s harvest is also very good due to the absence of rainfall since May, Gyudzhenov added.

Plans for the current year include purchasing white grapes to diversify the product range, again in partnership with certified organic producers. The still young winery is also preparing to present its products at trade fairs.

The vineyard currently produces about 25 tonnes of grapes annually, yielding 10,000-15,000 bottles of wine, but there are ambitions to increase capacity. The company has so far received one targeted financial grant under the viticulture and wine-making programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests to further equip its facility. A second project is being considered, under which funding will be sought for an in-house laboratory.