NB.: Any prices, vintage ratings and drinkability expressed are those current at the time this article was published, and may have changed in the meantime. This article is Copyright ©

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JR's notes:

In the summer of 1997 the Bulgarian Wine Institute had a limerick competition in the pages of NAZDRAVE. These were my entries. The last one won the prize and was published in NAZDRAVE magazine. The others were considered too shocking. Although the magazine is not live on the internet it's mentioned on the site of the Bulgarian Wine Guild at www.bulgarianwine.com

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A BULGARIAN IN LIMERICKS

Taking wine with his girl in Sofia

Young Vlad moved up close to her ear

But instead of "I luv ya"

He murmured "Nazdrave"

She said "Stop it! You're too Vladimir!"

A spirited girl is Natasha

Unimpressed by those richer or flasher

Until Vlad sent a minion

For a case of Czar Simeon...

They spent the weekend at his Dacha

A stripper from somewhere near Svischtov

Use to start just by taking her shift off,

But she did something lewd

With a glass of Mavrud

And the stage-lights were suddenly switched off.

There's a hill of old vines in Pavliken'

Makes the pulse of the local folk quicken:

Young lovers keep rovin' on

The Cabernet-Sauvignon

And they're squashing the grapes 'fore they pick 'em!

Said a grower in Stara Zagora

"I'm a pruner, a presser, a storer -

For no-one works harder, nay,

Than me with my Chardonnay

And the world likes it morer and morer..."

Nikolai, at a lunch, on the beach

Asked "for which fine red wine should I reach?

Is it Mavrud or Melnik?"

"You never can tell, Nik,

So let's have a bottle of each".

Body copy: 161 words