Not many people go on holiday to Bourgas. It is an industrial town with an oil
refinery, a rickety pier and a few hotels that have a whiff of communism
about them. Yet there are pleasant streets full of restaurants and cafés.
Unlike the nearby resort of Sunny Beach, which attracts hordes of Brits,
it’s mainly locals here.
I make friends with the man who runs the main winery. Panayot Nikolov is a
dynamic twentysomething wearing a flashy pinstripe suit with a pink shirt.
He looks a bit like Alexei Sayle. He’s from the Festa Wine Company, which
produces Black Sea Gold wines.
“We will show you the cellar and the winery!” exclaims Panayot, leading me to
a black Mercedes with tinted windows. We get in the back and the driver
races away, overtaking everything in sight.
Panayot fills me in about Bulgarian wine. “Extreme price-quality ratio. This,
I tell you, is the key,” he begins. Bulgarian wine, he explains, was first
exported in the 1970s. Doesn’t “extreme price-quality ratio” mean “cheap”, I
ask. Panayot gives me a look. “It is not cheap, it just has an extreme
price-quality ratio.”
Most exports of Black Sea Gold to the UK are to Northern Ireland. “They like
our wine there, oh yes! But England is difficult to crack.” I’m shown around
the winery. The casks are made from oak. “These barrels take 7,000 litres.
They are very huge,” says Panayot.
We go for a wine tasting. Panayot starts to wax lyrical about the various
wines. The sauvignon blanc is “pale straw colour with the aroma of freshly
cut grass and ripe fig: this is what I feel”. The chardonnay has “a vanilla
nuance from the oak with an apple fruitiness”. It is like “a sultry summer
afternoon”. I laugh a bit as I write this down. “My dictionary surprises
you?” asks Panayot.
We try a dry red: “This I call the tannic attack!” It certainly has a kick. We
try another red: “It is strong. It is concentrated. Yet it hasn’t lost its
vigour.”
Panayot gets philosophical. We’ve definitely had a bit now: “Wine is like a
man. If you let a man have everything without trial and effort, he gets lazy
and achieves nothing in life.”
We try something called Rakia Burgas 63. Rakia is the Bulgarian firewater –
and this is the “gold standard... the ultimate rakia experience!”
It’s like grappa, with a kick that just makes me think: “Very bad hangover.”
We go to see “bottling facility number 10”. We try some brandy.
“Concentrated sunshine!” exclaims Panayot. “You are going to be perfumed for
the whole evening, be sure of that!”
I’m not entirely sure what he means. I just nod and raise my glass. We talk
some more about “extreme price-quality ratio...” and I decide: Bulgarian
wine’s not that bad after all.
Details: Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com)
has returns from £89. Hotel Bulgaria (www.bulgaria-hotel.com)
has B&B rooms from £65. Bourgas Chamber of Commerce (www.port-burgas.com).
How low can you go: around Europe for 1p each-way (plus tax) by Tom
Chesshyre (Hodder and Staughton, £10.99) is available from BooksFirst
for £9.89 including postage and packing.
It is more brits that move to Bulgaria than bulgarians moving to the UK. Because of the beautiful weather, better life and nice people.
Nick, Sofia, Bulgaria
I am not sure why your correspondent opens the article in such negative stereotypical terms given that they purport to have been to Burgas. There are many hotels which do not have the whiff of communism about them, many new ones with extremely pleasant and helpful staff. If the best they can do is go to the most obvious hotel in Burgas and base their judgement on that experience, then maybe their days as an objective correspondent are over.
It would have been more appropriate to dwell lon the street cafe/restaurant life, the vibrancy of the younger generation and the obvious signs of rapid improvement combined with the wonderful weather, beaches and hinterland.
Allan Bell, Manchester, Uk