site.btaOsmar: Family-Run Winery Balances Tradition, Tourism, and Exports Despite Harsh Conditions in 2025

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.

Osmar Winery sells most of its wine on the Bulgarian market but also exports to the Czech Republic, the United States, and Austria, technologist Vyara Strahilova told BTA. “We produce up to 100,000 liters of wine annually,” she added.

In addition to its signature pelin, a herb-infused wine, the winery also produces dry whites and reds. It owns around 200 decares (20 hectares) of vineyards near the village of Osmar, cultivating Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

Strahilova said the 2025 harvest was the most difficult and worst the winery has experienced. “There was frost damage in the spring, followed by hail, then drought. In some vineyard blocks, the frost completely destroyed the crop, and we had no yield at all,” she explained. “We managed to buy some grapes and had wine from previous vintages, so we’ll cope. But since we’re both grape growers and winemakers, this poor harvest has made things extremely difficult.”

The winery has no plans to introduce new wines for now, Strahilova said. “We mainly produce Osmar Pelin, which makes up about 80% of our total production.”

Osmar Pelin is a semi-dry, aromatic wine classified as a quality wine. It has a balanced, slightly tart and bittersweet taste, made from aged wine infused with more than 30 wild herbs and fruits. The ingredients—grapes, apples, quinces, and herbs—are layered in five-ton oak barrels until two-thirds full, then topped up with either white or red wine, which determines whether the final product will be white or red pelin.

“It’s very difficult financially,” said winery manager Zhaclina Nikolova. “Unfortunately, state support is minimal. The subsidies we receive for grape growing cover only 2–3% of our actual costs, so it's hard to make larger investments at this stage.”

Nikolova added that the winery has not participated in competitions and doesn’t plan to for now. “It’s enough that people in Bulgaria know and have long sought out this pelin and our wines,” she said.

The winery organizes wine tours, which are typically fully booked on weekends. “We welcome tourists from all over Bulgaria and abroad,” Nikolova said, noting that until recently, the winery worked with the tour operator TUI, which brought in German visitors.

Osmar Winery has a long history—before 1944 it operated as a cooperative and became a private business in 1994.