Tzvetelina Shutova looks as if she should still be in high school but, in fact, she is 31, and married with two young daughters. Last year, she decided she wanted to go back to work and answered a newspaper advertisement seeking a multilingual guide to escort visitors around the Damianitza Winery, near Melnik.

"I knew nothing about wine," said Shutova. "So, I didn't even think I would get an interview."

But she did get the interview, and the job. Last month she took me around the spotlessly clean winemaking plant. She has learned a great deal in a year, because she speaks with knowledge and authority.

Damianitza winery, not far from the uniquely lovely restored village of Melnik, near the border with Greece, is equipped with everything needed to make good wine - especially in the matter of temperature-controlled fermentation and maturation - but could not be called state-of-the-art. But winemaking does not just come from the latest gizmos and computer controls, it comes from the heads and hearts of the winemakers.

So here I found the atmosphere and some of the wines of the Old World rather than the New World. Wines are left to mature longer, and there is the conservative, less forward flavour to those made with popular grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. French style, with a Bulgarian accent, you might say.

A fascinating part of the tour was to taste vintage 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot maturing in two types of French oak, as well as American and Bulgarian. The more open grain of the American oak had already done a lot of work on the wine and I felt this was not far short of the time when it could be bottled. The French was doing its work in a slower, more austere manner, but the wine was impressive.

Shutova told me the oenologists took a flexible approach to what would happen to each of the barrels. They would decide, she said, whether to blend or not. Most probably they would, mainly within one variety. They were conscious, though, of the practice in other countries (essential in Bordeaux) of blending other varieties into Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot in small quantities.

Clearly, there is a wealth of experience at Bulgarian wineries like this, because firstly, they have substantial quantities of these two great varietals to play about with, and, secondly, they have now been doing this for 40 years or more. Blending is a fine art, almost unlike winemaking itself, which is not very complex, and the truly great wines of this world are part of that art.

Wine is made here for several levels of the market. Everyday table wine in large containers, to everyday drinking wine like Mlado Melnishko (6.69 leva), to well cellared and matured varietals. Then there are the wines made from local grapes - luscious, big fat wines like NO MAN'S LAND (13.99 leva), a gorgeous mouthful, ideal with stews and casseroles.

For a group outing, a tasting of Melnik wines and an overnight stay in the village (we had a very comfortable night and a marvelous traditional breakfast at The House of Ouzounov) is a most enjoyable break.

Patrick Skinner is a wine writer living in Cyprus. His column appears fortnightly.