Wine Museum

Worth a detour

A private collection of Bulgarian wine kept in a natural cave in Kaylaka park, opened in 2008: five galleries over roughly 650 square metres, French oak barrels, several thousand bottles and a deep run of old vintages, with tasting on the spot. Being five kilometres out of town, it works as an evening rather than as a stop between two other things.

Story

Background

Kaylaka is a limestone gorge on the southern edge of Pleven — cliffs, a lake, caves — and the wine museum occupies one of the caves, which gives it a cellar temperature it does not have to pay for. The display side runs from Thracian viticulture onwards, with the tools and vessels that go with it. Behind it is the working part: barrels, and a stock that includes wines thirty to ninety years old alongside the several thousand bottles available to taste and buy.

It is worth being clear about what this is. The collection belongs to a local vineyard owner rather than to an institution, and the museum is the front of a cellar. That is not a complaint — it means the wine is real and you can drink it — but anyone expecting a state museum's curation will find something different.

Pleven's own claim on the subject is decent enough: this is the middle of one of Bulgaria's older wine regions, and the national vine and wine institute is in the town.