The Best Wine Bars in Sofia: 9 Places for Bulgarian Wine

Sofia's wine scene lives in small bars that pour Bulgarian producers you will rarely find abroad, many of them by the glass, often with the owner behind the counter. This is my pick of the 9 best wine bars in Sofia, with what a glass costs, where to book a proper tasting, which grapes to order and where to buy bottles to take home.

Sofia's wine bars at a glance

The best wine bars in Sofia

1. Grape Central

Grape Central fills a restored old bakery on Tsar Samuil Street, with exposed brick and floor-to-ceiling windows. Owners Yana and Effi keep a list of more than 300 wines, and at least 10 different wines rotate by the glass each month. The list holds two stars from the World's Best Wine Lists awards.

The chef trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and cooks a short seasonal menu of salads, seafood and pasta, and there is a brunch on Saturday. A glass costs about €5 to €8. When it is full the room gets loud, so I'd book it for a first night and keep the quiet bars for later in the trip.

2. Balaban Wine

Balaban Wine is a family bar on Krakra Street by the Doctor's Garden, with about 12 to 15 seats. Kalin and Maya Balaban run it with their son Kaloyan, and they pour more than 80 Bulgarian wines by the glass, a lot for a room this size. The first question is "white, red or rosé?", and from there you get grapes most visitors have never heard of: Papunka, Gergana, Storgosia and Gamza, next to Mavrud and Dimyat.

A tasting of three wines with local cheese and bread starts at about €10, and the premium tier costs about €20. It is a wine-only room, so a group that wants cocktails or beer will be happier elsewhere.

3. Coupage Wine & Cheese

Coupage on Solunska Street, a few blocks off Slaveykov Square, sells only Bulgarian products: wine from small wineries, plus cheese and cured meats from artisan producers. Owner Aleksander Angelov leads the tastings, starting at a chalkboard map of Bulgaria's wine regions drawn above the cheese counter.

A guided tasting pours 4 to 6 wines with cheese and charcuterie for about €10 to €15, for one person or a small group. One tasting here can run from a Black Sea Dimyat and an aromatic Tamianka from the Struma valley to a Rubin from Pleven and a Thracian Mavrud.

4. Cellar 52

Cellar 52 on Oborishte Street is part wine shop, part wine bar, run by a sommelier, a wine expert and a wine traveler. The shelves hold more than 1,000 wines.

You can pick a bottle off the shelf, pay a small corkage fee and drink it at the table with a cheese and charcuterie plate. A glass costs about €5 to €12. It opens daily from 11 AM to 10 PM, and it is the polished, pricier room I'd keep for a date or a last night.

5. Nectar

Nectar on Iskar Street is Sofia's natural wine bar, pouring natural and biodynamic wines from Bulgaria and beyond. The room is dim, with bookshelves you can browse, and on warm evenings the outdoor seats face the tram line, where routes 20 and 22 rattle past.

The food menu is short: local cheeses, fermented vegetables, bread and fondue. Staff will tell you what makes each bottle different, and the bar hosts events. A glass costs about €4.50 to €10. It opens Wednesday to Saturday from 5 PM to midnight and on Sunday from 5 to 10 PM. Skip it if you like your wine classic and predictable.

6. More Wine (Oshte Vino)

More Wine feels like a friend's living room. Owner Emi is usually behind the counter, and the list mixes Bulgarian wines, many of them natural and low-intervention, with international picks. A tapas menu is built around the wine.

The reason to plan around it is the tasting nights, when Bulgarian winemakers come in to pour their own wines and tell their stories, so ask about the next one when you book. A glass costs about €5 to €8, and it is the easiest stop near the center for one or two unhurried glasses.

7. Wine Generator

Wine Generator near Slaveykov Square pours Bulgarian wine only, from more than 150 labels by small domestic producers, with local cheeses and cured meats to go with them.

At about €4 to €7 a glass, it is the cheapest bar on this list for working through grapes you do not know, and a Rubin is the one I'd ask for first.

8. Zimnik

Zimnik is a basement bar about ten steps below street level in the center, run by two friends. It holds about 15 people and pours wine and craft beer, with cheese and cured meat boards on the side.

A glass costs about €5 to €8. With two owners and one small room, it suits a quiet night of asking what to drink next. Arrive early at the weekend, before the room fills.

9. WineMine

WineMine is a modern, well-lit wine bar in central Sofia, and small groups can walk in without a booking.

A glass costs about €5 to €9. Because the room is bright, I'd use it as the first stop of the evening, before dinner, and move somewhere darker later.

Wine tasting in Sofia

Balaban and Coupage run the tastings I'd start with, poured by the people who chose the wines, and the other bars on this list make more sense once you know the main Bulgarian grapes.

Two more rooms suit a slow, planned tasting: Vino Orenda, small, quiet and wrong for a big group, and Tempus Vini, a formal wine-led bar that also runs tastings.

The five traditional Bulgarian wine regions run from the Danube Plain in the north and the Black Sea coast in the east to the Thracian Plain in the south and the Struma and Mesta valleys in the southwest, where the Broad-leaved Melnik grape grows around the wine town of Melnik.

Wine shops in Sofia

Coupage is the shop I'd buy from, because everything on its shelves is Bulgarian and comes from small wineries. Cellar 52 is the other serious shop, and Wine Generator sells the Bulgarian wines it pours.

A bottle of Mavrud or Rubin from a small producer makes one of the best Bulgarian souvenirs. About 80% of Bulgarian wine is drunk at home, and the small labels in these shops rarely reach shelves abroad.

Bulgarian wines to order

These seven Bulgarian grapes are the ones you will meet most on Sofia's wine lists.

Mavrud is the one I'd try first. The name comes from the Greek word for black, and of the red Bulgarian grape varieties it is the one I'd pair with the cheese and cured meat boards these bars serve, because its tannin is firm enough to stand up to them. It is also the grape behind some of the best Bulgarian wines, so a glass in a bar is a cheap test before you buy a bottle.

What wine costs in Sofia

Most wine bars take cards. A tip of about 10% at the table is the normal rate for tipping in Bulgaria, and rounding up is fine at the counter.

Where the wine bars are in Sofia

Most of the bars on this list are in central Sofia, 15 to 20 minutes from each other on foot, so two fit into one evening without a taxi. Grape Central is on Tsar Samuil Street, Balaban on Krakra Street by the Doctor's Garden, and Cellar 52 on Oborishte Street.

Around Slaveykov Square

Wine Generator is near Slaveykov Square, and Coupage is a few blocks off it on Solunska Street. By day the square runs a book market of stalls under awnings, so a slow afternoon of books can roll into a first glass.

Tips for a wine night in Sofia

Bulgarians open a meal with rakia and the salad course, then switch to wine for the rest of it. Two bars in one night is plenty, with a tasting at the first and dinner at the second.

Order cheese with everything. Kashkaval and sirene, the salty white cheese, are the classic matches, and a plate of sirene with a glass of Dimyat is my favorite pairing in the city. The cheeses turn up across Bulgarian food too, from shopska salad to banitsa.

If the night moves on to cocktails, 5L Speakeasy and One More Bar on Tsar Shishman Street are the first cocktail bars in Sofia I'd send a wine drinker to, at about €8 to €14 a drink. Hambara, the candlelit bar on 6th September Street, pours simple house wine for cash, and it tops my list of the best bars in Sofia for a visitor. For a glass with a view, Sense, my favorite of the rooftop bars in Sofia, keeps a wine list that leans Bulgarian, and its terrace looks straight at the Alexander Nevsky domes.