🗺️ Bosnian wine

Bosnian wine (bosansko vino) is wine from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Balkan country that makes most of its wine in the south, in Herzegovina. Almost 4,500 hectares are under vine, and about 40,000 tonnes of grapes were harvested in 2019. Grapes rank third among the country's fruit crops.

The main vineyard areas are Lištica and Mostar. They grow mostly native varieties: white Žilavka and red Blatina. Both have been grown since the 14th century, and together they supply most of the country's wine, about 227,500 hectolitres.

Climate in Herzegovina varies. Trebinje is Mediterranean, while Mostar is described as modified humid subtropical, with an average temperature of 16.1 °C and about 1,500 millimetres of rain a year.

Compare it with Montenegrin wine, where Vranac leads, and Albanian wine, which stands on Shesh i Zi and Kallmet. Bosnia and Herzegovina has its own pair: Žilavka and Blatina.

If you spot a bottle from Mostar or Lištica, it is most likely Žilavka or Blatina.

Herzegovina's winegrowing reaches back about two thousand years, according to Decanter. Under Austro-Hungarian rule, experts judged the land around Mostar especially suited to Žilavka. Vines are confined to the basins of two rivers, the Neretva and the Trebišnjica. A local guide today counts 22 wineries spread over 6 municipalities. One of them, Imperial Vineyards in Mostar, traces its roots to Austro-Hungarian times.