From our Importer: Dimitar Kostadinov is a 3rd generation winemaker in Bulgaria’s Thracian Valley. Dimitar’s father and grandfather, Yordan and Dimitar Sr., bought 120 hectares of land in 1998 and began planting vines the next year. Their first harvest was in 2004. Dimitar Jr. attended university for Mechatronics in Linz, Austria, where he met his wife Elisabeth. After much consideration, he and Lisa, returned to Bulgaria in 2006 to run the winery. Though opposed by his father, Dimitar transitioned the vine cultivation to organic and dry farmed in 2010, which became certified in 2013. For many years, Dimitar was fascinated with the idea of completely natural winemaking techniques with minimal intervention, both the technical and philosophical aspects, studying from the likes of Rudolf Steiner. In 2016, he began experimenting on his own, not for commercial purposes. He did everything personally, by hand. He was overwhelmed by the response from people he shared this wine with. Thus, after several years of experimenting, he decided he would share his natural wine experiments with the world, starting with Minimum. What started as an experiment continues to expand to different styles and expressions of the Thracian Valley terroir.

The Thracian Valley is in the central & south of Bulgaria. It is situated below the Balkan Mountains and Sredna Gora and above the Rhodope Mountains and Aegean Sea. Historically, the Thracian Valley was covered in forest and known for rich forest soils. Owed to the world wars and industrialization, much of the forest has been cut down. The Zagreus vineyards are planted on these unique forest soils, which are layers of humus, cinnamon forest soil, clay, and soft limestone. The region’s most famous grape varietal is Mavrud, an ancient grape of the Thracian people. Mavrud is derived from the Greek word “mavro”, which means black, likely because the skin of the grape is bluish-black. As a late-ripening grape, Mavrud thrives in southern Bulgaria. The Zagreus Winery has been dedicated to elevating the Mavrud grape both locally and internationally.

In 2021, Dimitar’s personal experiment expanded to include more member of his winery and vineyard team, called Natural Wine Fellows of Zagreus. Dimitar’s vision is to implement his ideas about natural wine in a new qualitative level, where philosophical and practical aspects converge into a perfect entity. In getting to know Dimitar, I’ve enjoyed learning about his both scientific and philosophical approach to the art of winemaking. He has transferred his extensive training in research and analytics from his studies in mechatronics into his approach to vine growing and wine making. There are elements of Dimitar’s personal philosophy in every bottle of Zagreus wine.

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