📍 Berat

Berat is a museum town in central Albania and one of the country's most important wine areas. Its historic centre, with Gjirokastra, is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The vineyards around it give white Pulës, a grape sometimes called the grape of the centuries.

The town itself is old. Its castle, the Kala, was mostly built in the 13th century, though its origins go back to the 4th century BC, and several mosques date from Ottoman times. Wine here is old too. A 2016 review of Albanian viticulture counts 13 registered wineries in Berat, among them Luani, a former state winery that was later privatised, and Çobo, one of the first to aim for quality tied to place.

Pulës is golden yellow with a greenish tinge and smells of wildflowers, citrus and mountain tea. It tastes crisp, with long minerality. Alcohol runs 12 to 14 percent, and the limestone soils and altitude shape it. Serve it with freshwater fish, white meat or soft cheese. Tours let you taste Pulës aged in amphorae at boutique wineries.

Set it beside its neighbours. Berat made 2,250 hectolitres of winery wine in 2013, ten percent of the national total. Durrës made 45 percent and Elbasan only 3. Berat also makes almost a third of the country's raki. Përmet grows Pulës too, but its wine production is smaller. All of it belongs to Southern Albania.