Bulgaria

Eastern European wine-producing country whose western export success in the 1980s was built on inexpensive varietal wines, especially Cabernet Sauvignon, now showing increasing potential as a producer of high-quality red. Viniculture has been practised in this part of the world for more than three millennia, even if it was interrupted by Ottoman domination for nearly 500 years from 1393 to 1878 (see islam). The Turks retained substantial vineyards for table grape production, however, so that vine-growing has been consistently one of Bulgaria’s principal agricultural activities.