Tikveš

Tikveš has been making wine in North Macedonia since 1885 and is the largest producer in south-eastern Europe, farming around 1,000 hectares in the Tikveš valley in the centre of the country.

North Macedonia is one of Europe's last undiscovered wine countries, which is a surprise given the history: vines have grown here since at least the fourth century BC, and the region supplied wine to Yugoslavia in enormous quantity through the twentieth century, mostly in bulk and mostly anonymously. Independence in 1991 and the collapse of that trade forced a rethink, and the shift towards bottling under its own name has been rapid.

The indigenous varieties are the reason to pay attention. Vranec, whose name means black stallion, is the flagship red, deeply coloured and powerfully structured. Kratoshija is genetically identical to Primitivo and Zinfandel. Smederevka and Temjanika are the native whites, the latter a member of the Muscat family. The valley's continental climate and 260 days of sun a year ripen all of them readily.