Wine Hippies

Wine Hippies is a brand created by Dimitar Nikolov and Atanas Balev. Both are well-known figures in the Bulgarian wine scene and have significant experience in the field accumulated over the years.

Dimitar Nikolov is a professional sommelier and together with his wife Donka, he runs the project Apollowine. In 2017, he created his first own series of wines, including a blend with Shiroka Melnishka Loza, vintage 2017, produced at Villa Melnik, and Chardonnay Barrel Fermented 2015, which was created in collaboration with Zelanos Winery, which he consults.

Atanas Balev is a restaurateur who has achieved great success as a manager of several restaurants in Sofia and recently as an owner. There, he successfully experiments with his own series of wines.

What unites both of them is their belief that certain Bulgarian wineries excel with specific grape varieties due to the suitable terroir on which the vineyards are planted. Therefore, they decide to make a selection from different terroirs that are emblematic for particular wineries and grape varieties that correspond to their vision of honest yet extraordinary wines.

Through the Wine Hippies project, Dimitar and Atanas tell their personal story of rebels and unconventional thinkers within the context of the wine industry.