THE ROOTS OF AN ANCIENT TRADITION ...

Rose Valley Winery - Karlovo, was established in 1927 by the Agricultural Credit Bank and the vine-growing and wine producing cooperative company Karlovski Misket. It is located in the heart of the Rose Valley, in the geographical center of Bulgaria. The wine cellar has inherited the rich traditions for vine-growing and wine producing in the region, dating back to the ancient Thracian times and Bacchus' mysteria.

At some 10 km from the wine cellar is the antique city Dioclecianopolis (now Hissar), where many antique remains of jars for wine stoage and receptacles with vine motives were discovered. A more than 2500-year old wine receptacle was discovered in the religious sanctuary of the Thracian kind Sitalk nearby Starossel (at 18 km from the wine cellar).

Her Majesty the Danish Queen Margrete II drank in it the famous wine CabineT 97, produced by the cellar for the royal collection of her cousin, H.M. Simeon II. The traditions in viticulture and the production of grape drinks in the Rose Valley were further maintained and developed in the Middle Ages and the Bulgarian Renaissance.In the Karlovo region the vine-growing and the cultivation of oleaginous plants (rose, lavender, anise, garden geranium etc.) played a constant role in the vernacular population's living.

Already at that time was the fame spread of the notorious anisette, which the Turkish agas drank softened with mastic and spring water, with a green fig jam as an appetizer, of the Karlovo Misket "as yellow as amber" and the popular wormwood wine from Kalofer. Namely the Karlovo Misket was among the products offered by the Bulgarian producers at the Paris Expo (1990).

The specific natural considions and the mild climate characteristic for the Rose Valley have contributed to the complex development of the vines, since it is sheltered at the north by the mighty edges of the Balkan mountain and southwards - delicately merging into the sunny hills of the Sredna Gora mountain.