Wonderful three day tour combining wine education, folkore and history -highly recommended
Have just returned from an excellent three day wine discovery trip with Bulgaria Wine Tours -and am extremely impressed.
A two night-three day tour packed in a lot of sightseeing, educational winery visits, trips into the countryside and plenty of delicious food and wonderful wine.
Zina and Vasil are accomplished hospitality professionals with a deep understanding of winemaking. Their knowledge of Bulgarian folklore and history is encyclopedic – prepare to learn a lot.
The three day tour is an excellent way to get a feel of Bulgaria in a very short time. We visited wineries and a craft beer brewery -took a historical tour of Plovdiv, visited a stunning fortress and chapel and a beautiful, peaceful monastery. Bulgaria has a really deep-seated connection with ancient traditions -and we visited at the beginning of March. I stumbled across a “kukeri” whilst taking an sunset stroll through Plovdiv town centre -a true spectacle with costumed men and women, festooned with bells and animal horns performing dances to scare away evil. Quite magnificent.
Zina and Vasil are highly educated and articulate -both with exceptional English. They can answer questions about pretty much anything – I am a professional food and wine writer, so was constantly asking about the history behind dishes we tried and asking for quite technical information about the winemaking -and they were more than up to the task. Both can fill you in on the history of Bulgaria (and it is long and rich) from 10 BC to the current day.
I thoroughly recommend Bulgaria Wine Tours. The team will customize tours to suit their guests. They are also excellent at dining and shopping recommendations.
We packed a tremendous amount into the three days without it feeling exhausting. This was supposed to be an educational visit for me -and I have learned a lot about Bulgarian food and wine, which I expected to do. What I didn’t expect, was to feel like I have been on holiday for a week. Highly recommended!
Best Trip Ever
A friend of mine took this tour and highly recommended it so I had high expectations. But this trip far exceeded my high expectations.
We wanted to tie the trip timing to a transatlantic cruise. They offer defined tours but I asked for a tour that included specific things. Zina responded quickly to all my queries and our special tour was arranged. (I found out that about half of their tours are custom)
The big stuff:
-Wines were good to fantastic
– meals were scrumptious
– hotel rooms were far better than most I have experienced in a
Europe. All were large, clean and well appointed.
-Vasil our guide was a safe and courteous driver
-Vasil’s English is impeccable and easy to understand
-mixture of wine tasting and historical stops
-Vasil suggested unscheduled stops and cheerfully took us wherever we suggested or requested
-Vasil was very knowledgeable about Bulgarian history and current eventsThe Small Stuff
-modern car that was cleaned daily (even the car mats)
-fresh water daily even if most of yesterday’s bottle was left
-provided wine tasting note pads and pens with their logo on it
-dropped and picked us up at the hotel doors (parking is never close in Europe)
-took us to the airport after checking flightsThis is a first class professional organization!
Terrific half day wine tour and visit to Bachkovo Monastery
We booked a half-day visit from Plovdiv to a winery and a cultural centre. We requested a winery specialising in local grape varieties and a visit to Bachkovo Monastery, and this was arranged on our behalf. Zina was a very friendly and informative Tour Leader and we learnt much about the country as well as its wines. We visited the Zagreus winery and enjoyed its delicious Mavrud wines, followed by lunch in a local restaurant in Bachkovo. Returning home in late afternoon this was very good value for a half-day tour. Zina also, at short notice, arranged a last-minute trip for us on the following day to another winery. We were impressed with Bulgaria Wine Tours – all the arrangements and administration ran smoothly, and they were flexible in tailoring the tour to meet our specific requests. Very highly recommended.
Great customized day of wine touring
Based on strong reviews, we contacted Bulgaria Wine Tours asking to visit small, organic/biodynamic vineyards using more traditional old-school techniques rather than more modern experimental labels. We were very pleased with the custom itinerary provided and would strongly recommend the husband-wife team to other tourists to Plovdiv or Bulgaria as a whole. We learned a lot, had a great lunch in a local restaurant and sampled (and purchased) a number of fantastic wines.
Amazing experience with delicious wine
This is an experience I would recommend to anyone coming to Plovdiv. It’s way more than a wine tour–you learn about Bulgaria’s growing wine industry, see first hand how wine is made, and try some truly delicious wine. Our hosts were incredible, and so knowledgeable and passionate about the wine industry. Highly recommend!
More than a wine tour
My friend and I did a full day wine tour from Plovdiv on 15th June, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of our holiday.
From the first point of contact when I asked about their tours, the company were brilliant to deal with. Zina helped me decide on the type of tour we wanted, and when I asked about including a historical site in our day she sent a number of suggestions, making it easy to tailor our tour to suit.
After we’d confirmed the tour and got the itinerary for the day, we realised some of the timings didn’t work with our evening plans. Again, when I contacted Zina, she quickly helped us re-arrange our day to suit. I really appreciated this as it meant we weren’t distracted from our holiday by admin.
On the day of the tour our guide, Vasil went out of his way to make sure we got the most out of the day. He explained a little about the wineries we were visiting before we got to them, and gave us loads of information about the area too.
He helped us with the menus at lunchtime, and was very patient with all our questions about the food. We had a delicious, traditional Bulgarian lunch thanks to him. The tasting at the second winery (Starosel) was busy as they had two separate language groups in the tasting room. We couldn’t hear the winery’s guide very well, but we didn’t need to – we had our own personal guide. Vasil’s knowledge of the wines and the winery really added to our experience.
I would happily take another tour with Bulgaria Wine Tours and have already recommended them to friends.
A superb trip with Bulgarian Wine Tours
We have just returned from the most fabulous trip with Bulgarian Wine Tours. Their customer service was absolutely first class and our tour guide Vasil showed us several places of interest which we would never have found for ourselves. He is the most helpful and charming of people and nothing was too much trouble. In his own time, he took us to a local festival one evening near to one of the wineries we had visited in the afternoon where we watched local folk dancing and singing.
We visited 11 wineries and received a very warm welcome from every one of them. The passionate winemakers gave informative tours and we tasted almost 60 wines, some of which we could not resist taking home in our overloaded suitcases. The trip was carefully planned and tailored as much as possible to our personal requirements. We started each trip at 10am and felt in very safe hands with Vasil as our driver. He is a fount of cultural/historical information and an expert in Bulgarian wines.
Bulgaria is a hidden gem with some grape varieties you will not find anywhere else. Wines generally were of very good quality and we just wish we could buy them in the UK.
Melnik is an amazing place full of historic architecture and should not be missed. The countryside near the Greek border is really quite beautiful and the walking tour of the old town of Plovdiv with its cobbled streets and Roman Theatre made a delightful start to our first day.
Please do go ahead and book as you will be as enchanted as we were.
Customized wine tour
Asked for a three-day, customized wine tour in the Melnik region and ended up with an amazing trek through some great vineyards, with visits to monasteries and other cultural sites. Vasil knew the region like the back of his hand, all the great restaurants and places to walk – and his English is excellent so you could ask him anything about wine and Bulgaria. Every detail of the tour is worked out in advance, which meant no stress and plenty of time to focus on great wines! They also gave some great tips of where to go in Plovdiv.
Wow! What an amazing experience!
BGT was recommended to us by a friend of a friend and we signed on for the 4-day tour, which included one dinner plus 3 nights lodging at hotels and spas. Two of the days were spa afternoons having toured wineries and rose oil production facility. We were fortunate to be able to craft our own tour – asking for specific things and Vasil did a spectacular job. He’s really such a pro – and such a kind, articulate, well-educated and thoroughly special guy! (We didn’t get to meet Zina but hope to in the future!) Number one takeaway: Bulgarian wines are absolutely amazing – and still a phenomenal value for those of us who pay $20-$30 for a bottle of decent wine. We also love history and Vasil’s knowledge here also astounded us. After just 4 days we felt like we had been lucky to really have an experience that helped us ABSORB so much about Bulgaria and its proud and complex culture. Highly highly recommended!
Explore the secrets of Bulgarian Wine Country
First and foremost, a huge thank you to Zina and Vasil for organizing an amazing 2 day tour of the Thracian Valley. Vasil is a top knotch tour guide! Not only did he provide pick-up and transportation to each of the 4 wineries, he educated our group of 3 people about the surrounding areas and their cultural impact to the country.If you want to eat and drink your way through this gem in Balkans, while getting some cultural insight, this experience has no competition! This is an excellent way to experience the much unknown regions of Bulgarian wine country.
Thank you again, Vasil, I hope to again partake on your amazing tours!
-Daniel