The Tikveš Wine Region

The Tikveš basin sits in the Vardar valley south of Skopje, hot, dry and sheltered, and it produces the large majority of North Macedonia's wine. The grape that defines it is vranec, a thick-skinned red giving deeply coloured, tannic wine with dark fruit, grown here for a very long time and now handled with considerably more care than in the bulk-production decades. Several wineries have built tasting rooms and restaurants, from the large historic producer at Kavadarci to a set of smaller family estates, and the landscape between them is vines, low hills and the Tikveš reservoir, where boat trips run into a gorge with cliff-nesting raptors and the small monastery of St Archangel Michael on the shore.

What you actually see

• Winery tastings - vranec and white varieties at estates around Kavadarci and Negotino.
• Tikveš reservoir - boat trips into the gorge with cliff-nesting birds of prey.
• The harvest - picking and crush from September into October.
• Stobi - the Roman city on the way down from Skopje.

When to go

Spring and autumn; the basin is one of the hottest parts of the country in July and August. The harvest in September and October is the most interesting time at the wineries.

Honest expectations

Most wineries need advance booking and do not take walk-ins. Tasting means driving between estates on rural roads, so arrange a driver rather than sharing the pours. Vranec is a big, tannic wine that does not suit everyone. Some producers are geared to bus groups and the experience is correspondingly brisk.

Nearby

Stobi is north on the motorway; Demir Kapija's gorge lies south.