A little background on Serbia's great wine history

Serbia has a long history in both the trade and consumption of wine, and the cultivation of it. Indeed, there are signs of it all around. Many grape crushers and presses, as well as many wine carrying vessels, have been discovered from a wide range of historical eras. There are also many monuments depicting grapes vines, grapes and the harvesting of grapes.
Drinking vessels dating from the Bronze Age (200 BC) and from the Iron Age (400 BC), most probably used to consume wine, are age old traces of the trade in wine and the wine making in the Panonian lowlands.
During the archeological explorations of the site of the Roman city of Sirmium and other archeological digs in Serbia, large amounts of wine holding amphora’s were discovered that indicate the local trade in wine. As to the documented history of it, it is known that the Roman Emperor Domitian (69-96 AD) dictated a law granting a monopoly to the vineyards of the Italian peninsula, allowing only them to grow quality grape vines for the purpose of wine making. That monopoly remained in effect until the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus, born 232 AD in the Roman city of Sirmium, the present day Serbian city of Sremska Mitrovica, decided a change was needed. Probus initiated the growing of grape vines on the slopes of Alma Monsa (presently Fruska Mountain) in the locality of Sirmium, even employing his own legionnaires in the enterprise, and thus the beginning of wine growing in our country is associated with his name.
The History of authentically Serbian winemaking is more than a thousand year old tradition, beginning with the birth of the Serbian state in the 8th and 9th century, and developing markedly during the Nemanjic Dynasty (from the 11th to end of 14th centaury). Serbian rulers took great care and made great efforts to foster the culture of wine making. For example, in the mid 14th century, during the reign of Tsar Dusan (perhaps the greatest and most influential of Serbia’s historical leaders) laws where enacted that specifically concerned the governing of wine making, the quality of wine and the trade in wine, according to records from the “Charter of Stevan Dusan the First Crowned” (effectively the Serbian Magna Carta, and a historical record of the code of laws of the period). Tsar Dusan himself owned large vineyards and a palace wine cellar in the vicinity of city of Prizren, then the capital city of Dusans Empire. In his time from vineyards and wine cellars in the Velika Hoca, a major centre of local wine cultivation at the time, wine was directly transported to the imperial wine cellar in Prizren by a purpose built 25 km ceramic wine pipe line.
Wine was taken very seriously in medieval Serbia, and a goblet off wine was a call to dialogue or negotiation, would witness the sealing of a treaty, the swearing of an oath or the giving of a promise, or be spilt as a rebuke; in short, it stood as a reminder of the laws and traditions of the time. As the southern provinces became occupied by the expanding Turkish Ottoman Empire during the reign of Tsar Lazar in the second half of the 14th century, the local population migrated north and the city of Krusevac and the surrounding agricultural region becomes the centre of wine cultivation and trade.
Zaharije Orfelin, regarded as one of the most educated Serbs of 18th century, comments in his “For the experienced cellar keeper” written in 1793. that “our best wines are monastery wines and above all those from the region of Karlovac, especially the red wines, and the best are aged between three to four years”. With Ottoman conquest of Serbia complete, the vast majority of Serbian vineyards fell into disuse and decay, and the organized production of wine faced destruction as the Muslim faith forbade the consumption of alcohol.
Things take a turn for the better after the liberation of the Serbian state from the Ottoman Empire, and after a period of intense development, the wine making industry becomes the chief branch of agricultural production and thus in 1848, while a protectorate of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the famed “Navip” wine cellar is established and the start of organized wine production begins anew.
Serbia even became a major producer and exporter of wines to France, quickly garnering an admirable share of the French wine market during the period from 1890 till 1895.
The rulers of the newly liberated Serbia took a keen interest in the wine industry, and are responsible to a large degree for the (re)emergence of the wine trade in modern times, especially King Peter I Karadjordevic, and his son Alexander Karadjordevic, then heir to the thrown. At the end of the 19th centaury, around the highlands of Oplenac in central Serbia, they commissioned the planting of tens of hectares of vineyards and the construction of wine cellars for the production of first class wines. Close by to the royal wine cellar, there also existed the famed Vencac winemakers guild, renowned for their sparkling wines and known as one of the largest wineries in the Balkans. Yearly, some 50.000 tourists would visit its famed wine cellars, and its produce found a warm, welcome reception as far afield as Vienna. From the 1870’s onwards wine was actively exported to France, Austro-Hungaria, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Romania, much of it finding itself be shipped out by way of the Radujevic harbour to faraway Bordeaux.
Wine growing and production in province of Srem is amongst the oldest and most important in this part of Europe. Thus the people of the city of Karlovac became known primarily thanks to the quality of their wine, consumed through out Europe. Wines cellars in the area of Karlovac are a true delight for visitors to this day. After World War I, they where constructed primarily as a series of wooden shafts with arched, curved domes and fundaments, and during the process of fermentation and storage where kept in exclusively wooden barrels; while wooden capped barrels are still in use, metal is slowly replacing it as the sealing material of choice. The families of Karlovac that gained their reputation in the past from the production of the famed Ausbruch and Bermet wines restarted private production in the ‘90’s, each using authentic family recipes for wine making, handed down from generation to generation. Each individual family keeps their own method for wine making a trade secret, and each is carefully fostered and guarded.