Tikves, Macedonian wine coming to London

Posted by winesleuth in All, Food and Wine | 5 comments

Last week Tikves Winery held a dinner in Central London to introduce Macedonian wines to the UK market. It was an interesting tasting to be sure as I wasn’t really clear on WHERE Macedonia was but I was interested to see what they were offering.

It turns out that Tikves is one of the oldest wineries in the Balkans (that’s where Macedonia is) and they’ve been making wine sine 1885. They are also one of the biggest, making over 35 million bottles as  year. Their primary market is the US but they are now looking to grow their UK market. They grow indigenous grapes (temjanika, rkaciteli, smederevka, stanosina, vranac, plavec krastosija) along with international varieties –  chardonnay, grenache blanc, sauvignon blanc and riesling.

We tried a range of both their whites and reds at a tasting before sitting down to dinner at Baku in Knightsbridge. In general, I found the wines to be well made, the wines made from  indigenous varieties being the most interesting. Rkaciteli Special Selection 2012 (white) was aromatic with slight honeyed notes, having  good acidity and balance. I could easily imagine this to be an excellent summer quaffer. One of the international blends I did like was the Barovo White 2012 (grenache blanc and chardonnay) a juicy but dry wine with plentiful citric notes. However, it was on the high end of the scale pricewise and I think I would wait for the price to come down on that one.

The reds were interesting but again, the standout of the bunch was the single variety, Vranac Special Selection 2012. Fruity, easy drinking and very approachably soft, this wine was a winner.

The Belavoda Red 2011 (50% vranac and 50% plavec) was enjoyable with our main of smoked Barbary duck breast, washing down the flavoursome duck easily but again the price was a bit steep as far as value for money is concerned.

As I was sitting next to the wine maker, Marko Stojakovic, during dinner I asked him where he sees his wines developing in the next few years. Marko is a young winemaker, only 30 years old and has been the winemaker since 2010. He told me that he would like to make more complex wines in the future. He cited the wines of Burgundy and Chateauneuf-du-Pape as his inspiration for the coming years. The winery currently has famed Rhone winemaker Phillipe Cambie as their consultant and he is working closely with Marko in the production of their wines. Phillipe was supposed to be at the dinner that evening but was detained in France.

A promising debut from Tikves wines, now it remains to be seen what Marko and his team will do in the future.