The best wines of Kosovo

Discovering the wine region of Kosovo

Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe, formerly an autonomous province of the former Yugoslavia. Until the outbreak of the civil war, Kosovo had a large area of productive vineyards. Many of these were subsequently abandoned, and the industry is still in the early stages of recovery. It is a disputed land, claimed as sovereign territory by Serbia but considered independent by the ethnic Albanian majority living there.

Kosovo was governed by the United Nations until 2008, when the Kosovo government was formed. The effect of the conflict on the wine industry was amplified because Kosovo's pre-war exports were heavily concentrated on a single brand of wine for a single export market. Amselfelder ("fields of blackbirds"), a Sweet red wine made from Pinot Noir and Gamay, was a massive success in Germany. The Kosovar wine market was disproportionately dependent on it.

Millions of cases of Amselfelder were shipped to Germany each year, and the brand was at its peak when the war broke out. The logistics of wine production and export are virtually impossible in wartime, so for nearly a decade, vineyards that were not damaged were largely abandoned; the brand disappeared entirely. Its place on the German wine market was taken by several similar-style wines from other regions. Amselkeller, a red from Valencia in Spain, was the most successful rival, appearing only 18 months after the start of the Kosovo war.