Zagreus - Giannikos Winery

Just as the Thracian god of wine Zagreus was reborn to a new life, the Kostadinov family restored and revived their inherited farmlands, establishing Zagreus Winery in 2004. The Kostadinov family roots come from the village of Vinitsa, near the winery. In 1999, Yordan Kostadinov, together with his father Dimitar Kostadinov, started refurbishing and expanding the family vineyards in the “The Old Vineyards” area. Then the idea of ​​Zagreus Winery was born. To date, their son and grandson Dimitar Kostadinov Jr is the one who runs the company.

Zagreus Winery is an ultra modern building with a fully integrated cycle of production from the grape in the vineyard to the wine in the bottle. It is equipped with the most modern production facilities with the ability to control and optimize all processes of fermentation, vinification, stabilization, bottling and maturation of the wine.

The new vineyards were planted in 1998 and today Zagreus has about 130 hectares of its own vineyards. The grape varieties grown are Mavrud — Bulgaria's oldest and most prized native grape, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Merlot. All vineyards are within a 2 km radius of the winery in the Thracian Lowlands (Thracian Lowlands) near Plovdiv, which is one of the most favorable wine regions in Bulgaria, both in terms of climate and soils. The bottoms are usually dark maroon-red. In terms of climate, the area belongs to the continental transition zone. The temperature regime is characterized by an open winter and hot summer. The average annual air temperature is 12.3°C. The duration of the frost-free period is on average 210 days. The average annual rainfall is 565 mm. The region belongs to the zone with the longest sunshine, with an annual average of 2293 hours. In July, the grapes here enjoy an average of 10 hours of sunshine a day. And here Zagreus finds the best conditions to be able to pick the grapes at their full technological maturity and thus obtain the perfect material for making high quality wine.

Since 2010, Zagreus Winery's vineyards are fully grown according to European standards for organic farming and from harvest 2013 all wines are certified organic. No synthetic pesticides and fertilizers or genetically modified organisms are used in the cultivation of the grapes. Only sulfur preparations (blue vitriol, green vitriol), extracts of plants and strains of microorganisms with insecticidal action are used. “Maintaining a vineyard with such preparations is much more labor intensive as it requires much more work for preventive measures,” says Dimitar, owner and manager of Zagreus Winery.

No synthetic chemicals are used in the vinification. The yeast for fermentation is guaranteed GMO-free. Only additives of natural origin are allowed, extracted from natural products — vegetable, mineral, micro-organisms without GMOs. Sulfur dioxide added before bottling to prevent oxidation is only half of the maximum allowable standard for organic winemaking.

Zagreus' most distinctive and successful wine is the VINICA Mavrud, made from dried grapes. Since the first vintage in 2011, VINICA has been awarded the best Bulgarian wine several times and is in the Top 5 wines of Bulgaria almost every year.