North Macedonian Wine History

As in the surrounding countries, the wine history of North Macedonia goes back to long before our era. The oldest archaeological finds near Negotino date back to the 13th century BC. It is likely that wine cultivation had already been taking place here for quite some time.

Although the region has a turbulent history, wine growing has always continued. Alexander the Great - still the 'most famous North Macedonian of all time' - was a great enthusiast and liked to take a few barrels with him on his travels. In Roman times, present-day North Macedonia was also an important wine region. Slavic peoples who entered the area in the 7th century took over and a few centuries later, when the region was occupied by the Turks, the monasteries simply continued to make wine.

In the second half of the twentieth century, wine growing in North Macedonia experienced strong growth. All family businesses were nationalised by the state and transformed into 13 large state-owned companies. Some 30,000 families each received a small piece of vineyard. They had to sell their grapes to the state-owned companies, which then made wine from them. Often bulk wine, which was transported in large tanks to other countries and bottled on site. Production increased enormously and the former Yugoslav province supplied a large part of the Balkans and Eastern Europe with wine in this way. Although the quality of the state-owned companies sometimes left much to be desired, this system kept the vineyards in good order.

A lot has changed since the end of the twentieth century. The former state-owned companies have been privatized and modernized. New, private wineries have been established. They have established many of the former small private plots to turn them into professional vineyards. The quality has clearly improved and it is expected that North Macedonian wine will continue to improve in the coming years. Some wineries are already at an international level and export their wines all over the world.