[caption id="attachment_335" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Wine Cellar"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04150.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-335" title="Wine, Wine" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04150.jpg?w=300" alt="Wine Cellar" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

This weekend I went on an excursion with the teachers from my school.  We left bright and early on Saturday morning, spent the afternoon in Thessaloniki, Greece and then crossed back in to Bulgaria to stay in the smallest town in Bulgaria--Melnik which also happens to be know for wine making.  The weather was incredible between 10 and 22 degrees Celsius or about 67-71 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was hard to believe that it was the first weekend in November.  I mentioned this to one teacher and she told me that weather like this now it means that it is going to be a cold, cold winter.   Great.  Right now, I'll just try to bask in the sun and hope that even if the winter is a cold one that it's not too long.

Luckily, I've got some wine to make it through the winter.  Well, actually I have a bottle of red table wine and a two liters of cherveno vino (red wine) in a plastic bottle.

Here I am at about 9:30 on Sunday morning in a wine cellar next to the house that we stayed in the night before!! So you may wonder how I came to buy a two liter bottle of red wine at 9:30 in the morning from a spunky 60 year old Bulgarian woman. I still do to.

[caption id="attachment_331" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Wine Tasting at 9:30 am "]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04155.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-331" title="Me and wine " src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/dsc04155.jpg?w=300" alt="30 am" width="300" height="225" /></a>[/caption]

Basically, we were headed downstairs to have breakfast before going on a walking tour of the city and the woman in the picture with me was outside behind her house.  So really what follows is complete luck.  This happened to be the way we had to exit our room to go down for breakfast and she was out behind her house poking around (see I am not even sure what she was doing).

That's when one of the husband's of one of our teachers started talking to her.  Soon she had out both her homemade rakia and her red wine.  He called me over and I tried some as well and then she took us downstairs to her wine cellar. So what it boils down to is that I was lucky to be going to breakfast when she was outside, even luckier to have the husband call over to me the American on the trip that I should taste her wine and the best part came when she invited us in to see her cellar.<!--more-->

This was like no wine cellar I've ever seen.  In Walla Walla which I think has a booming wine industry, the set up is a little bit different as most of the wineries there have been built within the last 10 years and often resemble fancy garages and their wine tasting rooms are shinny and new.  These wineries in Walla Walla are selling wine but they are also selling a life style and a well defined idea of what wine tasting is.

For this woman, her tasting room was outback on the side walk and her wine cellar was in the basement of a dirty 150 year old building. The walls of the building were made of stone and more than a foot thick.  She explained that this way the temperature remains constant throughout the year.  The great part was that it looked to me like the only updates the building had in the last 75 years was the addition of electricity--a couple of hanging light bulbs.  She was making wine for the sake of making wine.

[caption id="attachment_338" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Showing us her wine"]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-woman.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-338" title="melnik-wine-woman" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-woman.jpg?w=300" alt="Showing us her wine" width="300" height="233" /></a>[/caption]

She had a lot to say but I wasn't understanding very much of it and the teachers I was with were listening intently and I hated to keep asking: what did she just say? So instead I looked around and took pictures. The construction of the building was pretty neat with lots of wood and rocks--there was nothing new about the place and you get the sense that the same thing has been taking place in this basement for years.  The wooden beams were rough but the construction appeared solid. It's a moment like this that helps you understand just how old the homes in this town are.

At some point, one of the teachers explained to me that she is licensed to produce wine and that other people in the neighborhood also store their wine in her cellar.  I think that it was important for her to tell me that she was licensed.  It did make me wonder later if other people were selling wine in Melnik without licenses.  Really though, what's the point of a licence in a place like Bulgaria? I guess if you taste the wine and you like it you should just buy it and not worry.

I ended up with two liters of red wine in a big plastic bottle with a screw top lid like on a soda bottle.  There is something pretty bootleg feeling about buying your wine like this but then again it was only 8 Leva.  That's a lot of wine for 8 leva.  I am not sure that it's as good as the wine I've had in either Walla Walla or at the Virgina Wine Festival but it is pretty good and seeing as I've been known to drink box-wine who am I to complain or turn down a large bottle of cheap wine?  And for the record, her wine is hands down better than any boxed wine I've ever had (sorry Robyn).

[caption id="attachment_337" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Wine Tasting "]<a href="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-tasting-room.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-337" title="melnik-wine-tasting-room" src="http://www.karolinkabulgaria.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/melnik-wine-tasting-room.jpg" alt="The Wine Tasting &quot;Room&quot;" width="300" height="400" /></a>[/caption]

After the tour, we took a picture together outside of the wine cellar--see the arched door? That goes down to the wine cellar.  Also you should make sure to check out her tasting room.  You can see it if you look at the ground by my feet.  Yep, those are the plastic bottles of wine sitting on the floor and a couple of glasses which everyone share.

After the photo this woman then insisted on showing me her home above the wine cellar. If you look in the picture behind the two of us is a set of stairs up to her home.   I wasn't sure what to expect after being in her wine cellar/barn but the house was lovely.  It had a huge kitchen, high ceilings and she rents at least one of the rooms out to visitors which she also showed me.  It was bright and comfortable looking. I am not sure that I'll have the opportunity to stay the night again in Melnik but I am not tossing out her business card.

The thing that I was struck by is how nice someone can be even when you don't speak their language.  This woman clearly loved what she was doing and got a kick out of showing a very tall, blond rather out of place American around her wine cellar and home. I am sure it didn't hurt that I smiled and told her in Bulgarian that her wine was delicious.