Is Serbian wine good, and why drink it in Belgrade?
Yes — Serbian wine is genuinely worth seeking out, and a glass of local wine is now an interesting choice rather than a dutiful one. The reason is a wine-production renaissance over the last two decades: a quiet revival, led increasingly by small family wineries returning ancient indigenous grapes to quality winemaking. That shift is exactly why Belgrade has grown a wine-bar culture worth an evening of your trip.
The quality regions to know are Fruška Gora, Šumadija, Timok, Tri Morave and Vršac — places outside the city, but the source of much of what you'll find in a Belgrade glass. (Fruška Gora, in Vojvodina just north-west of the city, is the best-known; its vineyards sit along the Danube and it's sometimes called the "Serbian Holy Mountain.") These names sit on bottle labels and chalkboards across Belgrade, and the city's restaurants and specialist shops now routinely list local and international wines, with some specialising in Serbian labels and indigenous grapes. This page treats those regions as the source of the wine, not as a travel destination in themselves — the focus here is on drinking it in Belgrade.
The shift is generational. Wine media note that every neighbourhood now has at least one specialist wine retailer or bar, where at the turn of the century the city had a single wine shop. A Star Wine List Belgrade selection highlighted around a dozen-plus wine restaurants and bars in the city (an initial 2024 launch counted 13, a later edition around 12) — a perishable tally, since selections change and the scene is young enough that any count is a snapshot. What's durable is the simple fact that a serious wine-bar ecosystem now exists.
What Serbian wine should I try?
Start with the indigenous grapes — they're what makes a Serbian wine list different from anywhere else, and the heart of the renaissance.
- Prokupac — the flagship red, an ancient variety often called the "pride of Serbia," with roots going back to the Middle Ages. It ranges from light and fruity to structured and complex, with red-berry, spice and earthy notes. If you try one Serbian wine, make it this.
- Tamjanika — the aromatic white to seek out. Part of the Muscat family, it's intensely floral and citrusy, often slightly off-dry. An easy, fragrant introduction.
- Bermet — from Fruška Gora, a unique aromatic fortified dessert wine, distinctive enough to be a regional curiosity worth tasting.
Beyond the indigenous labels, the wine bars and wine-forward restaurants pour quality bottles from across Fruška Gora, Šumadija, Timok, Tri Morave and Vršac, alongside international wines. The single most useful move is to let the staff steer you — the scene is built on small producers, and a knowledgeable pour is how you find the good ones.
Where can I do a wine tasting in Belgrade — the best wine bars?
Because the scene skews young, it's worth being honest about which places have a track record and which are early reputations. Two stand out as more established, and both are central.
IL Grappolo, on Obilićev venac in the city centre — the cluster of cafe-lined passages just off the Knez Mihailova pedestrian spine, a few minutes' walk from Republic Square — is a wine bar with a broad domestic and foreign selection representing all of Serbia's wine regions, alongside brandies and craft beer. It has been operating at least since 2018, which by the standards of this scene counts as settled. Proces Wine Bar is the other regular fixture, focused on Serbian wines — including amber and skin-contact labels — with knowledgeable staff and a social atmosphere. It is consistently cited by wine media, though still relatively young.
Beyond those, Naše Vino and Wine bar Passage are worth naming as examples — the former a Serbian-wine-focused bar and shop pairing wines with tapas, the latter a small tasting-room-style bar (capacity around 20) pouring wines from different Serbian regions alongside cold cuts. Both have strong early reputations but limited long-term track records, so treat them as starting points rather than institutions and check they're still trading before you make a special trip.
If you'd rather have someone walk you through it, guided Serbian wine tastings are run regularly for visitors — typically a flight of several Balkan or Serbian wines paired with local snacks, hosted in English, often in the Dorćol district (the cafe- and bar-heavy inner-city neighbourhood just north-east of the centre). These are an easy, structured entry point if you don't want to navigate a list yourself, and several operators run them most days; book ahead and confirm the current schedule.
And if you'd rather not commit to a dedicated wine bar at all, many serious restaurants double as wine venues showcasing Serbian regions — Legat 1903, Langouste, Comunale and Iva among them, several of them Michelin-listed — and for non-specialists these may be the most practical introduction, letting you pair a regional wine with a meal. That overlap with the dining scene runs deep; for the full picture of where to eat, the best restaurants in Belgrade is the place to look.
Rakija — the tradition behind the bottle
Wine may be the renaissance story, but rakija is the older and more deeply rooted one. Rakija is fruit brandy, and it sits at the centre of Serbian hospitality: drunk before, during and after meals, and accompanied by toasts. The iconic variety is šljivovica, made from plums — Serbia is a major plum grower, and šljivovica is effectively synonymous with Serbian hospitality. Apricot, quince, pear, apple and other fruits are common too, so a good tasting is partly an education in what a single distilled fruit can taste like.
Culturally, rakija is treated almost as a folk remedy and is bound up with social ritual. That's why a tasting is less about ticking off labels and more about the staff guiding you through them. Dedicated rakija bars in the city offer tastings across many varieties, including homemade labels, with knowledgeable staff to walk you through the differences. Specific bars come and go, so it's the experience — a flight of varieties, a bit of guidance, a sense of which fruit you actually like — that's worth seeking out rather than any one address.
Rakija's most traditional home, though, is the kafana, where it arrives with toasts and slow conversation rather than a tasting menu. If that's the version of the ritual you want, Belgrade's kafanas are the natural setting, and that page covers the experience properly.
Where this fits in a Belgrade night
Wine bars and rakija tasting are a distinct, lower-key going-out mode. This is sit-and-taste rather than club — an evening built around what's in the glass and the people you're with, overlapping at one end with the kafana world (rakija) and at the other with fine dining (wine). It's a good counterweight to the splav and club scene, and an easy way to spend an evening if loud nights aren't what you're after. For more ways to fill the rest of a day or evening, things to do in Belgrade is a useful starting point.
On price, the honest answer is that it varies by venue. For context from the louder end of the night, at clubs and splavovi domestic wine bottles have been reported at roughly 25–40 EUR with individual drinks a few euros each — figures cited as of 2025–2026, so treat them as indicative. Wine-bar and rakija-tasting pricing differs from place to place, so check current menus rather than relying on a fixed figure.
What's still worth checking
The backbone of this scene is durable: the wine renaissance, the regions, and the rakija tradition are all settled facts. What's perishable is the rest — which specific bars are open, how a given venue prices a tasting, and whether the newer names have stuck around. The wine-bar scene is young, so before you build an evening around a particular address, confirm it's still trading and check its current list. Lean on the regions and the rakija tradition as the stable ground, and treat individual venues as the changeable part.
