The winery is located next to the village of Melnik in the southwestern part of Bulgaria, not very far from the Greek border. It is therefore hardly surprising that the climate is more mediterrannean than continental. The grape varieties that strive there are similar to southern France: Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Viognier and of course the local ones, Melnik 55, Melnik 1300 Jubilee, Shiroka Melnik, Ruen and Mavrud.
The story of the vineyard and the family represents the modern face of Bulgarian vinegrowing and winemaking. The winery was founded in 2007 by Nikola and Lyubka Zikatanov who planted 30ha of own vineyards in the Melnik Region of the Struma River Valley, South-Western Bulgaria. They built a state-of the-art gravity-flow winery with modern winemaking equipment and opened it to the public for daily tours and tastings.
They were joined by their daughter Militza in 2015, whose experience working for a global alcohol corporation helped grow Villa Melnik’s market share and excellent reputation.
In 2020, 2021 and 2022, Villa Melnik is ranked among the Top 100 World’s Best Vineyards, a global ranking by William Reed.
You can read more about the estate on their website.
Villa Melnik produce wine in a style that is not without reminding us of French wines. Beautiful balance, nice acidity and often powerful tannins. Because of that, the wines are fantastic food partners.
Reds are structured, serious wines, that have a nice ageing potential and give their best after prolonged oxygenation. Their tannic character give them a strong identity and ability to pair with meaty meals.
The rosé is marvellous, with power and structure. All the wines manage their climate to perfection. At the moment we selected only AplauZ and Bergulè range, but they also offer some fantastic icon wines like the Melnik Jubilee 1300 that is one of the top wine in Europe.
Our selection
For the Finnish market, we have selected some of the wine from Villa Melnik. As far as we can and depending on availability, it will be possible for us to adapt our selection to your needs.