What I Learned in Serbia

And how I made my peace with Oszkár Maurer's wines

Here are five things I learned during my maiden visit to Serbia last week:

1. If you are a non-smoker or a vegetarian, you are going to suffer. A colleague likened the no-smoking sections in Serbian restaurants to a swimming pool with a no-pissing zone. Grim but true.

2. There is no such thing as a light meal in Serbia. If you weren’t already full of burek and cevapi by dinner time, vast platters of grilled meats, potato based accompaniments and mountains of fermented cabbage will ensure total satiation by the time you leave the table. The only solution is rakija. Or claiming to be a vegetarian.

3. If you thought you understood some Serbo-Croat words and phrases, the level of difficulty doubles in Serbia because the official alphabet is Cyrillic. Both Cyrillic and Latin script are used interchangeably. So if you didn’t learn Russian at school, удачи.

4. The locals adore aromatic grape varieties. Tamjanika, aka Muscat a Petit Grains and Traminac aka Gewürztraminer are planted all over the country and much enjoyed by all. They are rapidly gaining in popularity as orange wines too.

5. Serbia’s best Tamjanika isn’t commercially available. From winemaker Miloš Kostić, this beautifully pure, aromatic and citrus fresh delight is made in such minute quantities that it’s not for sale. Except if you go to the winebar Proces in Belgrade, where it’s available by the glass. At least for the next five minutes.

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Here is the big question I wanted to answer:

Why does the largest ex-Yugoslavia nation, with one of the longest histories of wine production, have an almost non-existent profile on the global wine stage?

And here’s where I got to:

Two of the smallest Balkan countries, Slovenia and Croatia, get most of the attention. Some might simply argue that they make better wine, but it’s not that simple. Politics, geography and culture have all played a role.

Slovenia was always the richest, most westernised and most entrepreneurial of the ex-Yugoslavians. Not only was it first (along with Croatia) to exit the socialist republic in 1991, it was first to join the European Union and embrace the Euro. Sharing borders with Italy and Austria added to its advantage in terms of getting the word out.

Croatia has the tourist-draw – its dreamy Adriatic coastline and idyllic islands. And it has Istria, an Italianate haven of sophistication and highly skilled winemaking that contrasts to the more rustic production found further south.

Despite repeated attempts to apply, Serbia remains outside the EU, and its wine production hasn’t entirely recovered from the communist and socialist days when quantity was the only game in town. Prices for vineyard land, grapes and bottled wine remain absurdly low. The wine industry isn’t seen as an attractive prospect here. Not just that: the stylistic preferences of the local market don’t align so well for export. It’s not only the love of flowery, aromatic whites. The Serbian blueprint for a good red wine is turbo-charged alcohol smothered to within an inch of its life in oak. Combine that with an old-school approach to wine label design plus the logistical challenges of exporting into the EU, and it isn’t hard to understand why Serbian wines struggle to compete.

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My other goal was to probe into Serbia’s nascent natural wine sector. I arrived in the country with three names in my little black book, and one big problem. Oszkár Maurer, Djordje Bikicki and Bojan Baša are the power-trio of Serbia’s best known region, Fruška gora – when it comes to natural wine.

The problem: I never had much love for Maurer’s wines, despite his reputation as pioneer, iconoclast and rockstar of Serbian natural wine. He mentored both Bikicki and Baša, yet his bottles always seemed inconsistent, weird and lacking in drinkability. Was I missing something?