National.

An increasing number of foreigners are visiting Macedonia to dig up vintage wine left behind in the tiny Balkan country by allied troops during World War I, a report said Tuesday.

‘More and more foreigners, mostly French, are coming with maps and excavating former military storages,’ said Petre Sindevski, a 73-year-old from Staravina village, some 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Skopje.

‘They ask if we have found some bottles of wine in the past and where. They dig overnight when nobody can see them,’ he told Dnevnik newspaper.

During the 1914-1918 war, the region was a frontline of Salonika, where a number of French soldiers fought and died.

Macedonian enologists estimate some of the wine could be more than 90 years old and, according to one of them, Zlatko Lazov, a well-conserved bottle could fetch a price tag today of up to 2,000 euros (2,675 dollars).

Locals say they have unearthed bottles of wine and cognac, claiming that they have never tasted anything better.

MD: Very interesting, Get the bottles before the foreigners do!! We would love to try some of that wine though :)

[Khaleej times]

Posted by Macedonia Daily on Monday, April 09, 2007 at 12:15 am | Permalink