Bajilo Wine Cellar (Podrum Bajilo) is a family winery that fascinates visitors over and over again with its wines, ambience and a particle of the history of Karlovci winemaking, which it keeps in the company’s headquarters. When following the rails you pass through the passage of the once powerful baroque building and enter the space for visitors, only then you can understand that huge quantities of grapes and wine were brought and taken from here by the internal railway. The same is revealed and confirmed by a wine cellar buried forty meters under ground. It is a striking building from 1864, fifty meters long. In it, a line of neatly arranged wine tanks ends with the bank of the Bajilo family, which keeps the family treasure behind a wrought iron fence: rows of lied down bottled wine from every harvest in the last thirty years and a barrel that holds 13,000 litres of Sremski Karlovci treasure.
The cellar, once a co-operative property, has been owned by the Bajilo family since 1925, and today it is run by father Predrag and sons Petar and Stevo Bajilo, the third and fourth generation of winemakers. Their vineyards are located in the vicinity of Sremski Karlovci, and the basis for wine production is the following grape assortment[1]: Sila, Neoplanta, Probus, Tamjanika, Traminac, Italian Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Fruška Gora Portuguiser and the ecological variety Pannonia, which gives fruit for the first time this year.
The following wines are offered: Sila Bajilo, Italian Riesling Bajilo, Neoplanta Bajilo, Tamjanika Bajilo, Traminac Bajilo, Cabernet Sauvignon Bajilo, Portuguiser Bajilo, Probus Bajilo, Rose Bajilo, White Bermet Bajilo and Bermet Bajilo (red). Good wines are made with love, attention and dedication, which is proven by the Bajilo family, mostly by Stevo, who is directly in charge of the quality of the family wine treasure. These are character wines with all the properties of the much-appreciated Fruška Gora terroir.
The wines of this house have won over a hundred awards and a dozen cups at wine fairs in Novi Sad and the Karlovci Grape Picking Festival (Grožđebal). Also, Bajilo Wine Cellar is recognized by the Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad as the largest producer of indigenous grape variety Sila in the world.
Visitors have at their disposal a wine tasting room on two levels with fifty-five seats and an arranged space in the courtyard, which is a kind of book of impressions – a testimony to the languages spoken by visitors. There is a well of wishes intended for visitors to leave coins with good wines and strong wishes, which turn into packages for children during the year.
The tourist programme includes a tour of the wine cellar, a story about the winery, presentation of wine with tasting and purchase, and appetizers upon prior arrangement (cured meat products, cheese and pastries), all in accordance with the HCCP standard that Bajilo Wine Cellar holds.
Opening hours: Monday to Sunday from 09:00 a.m. – 07:00 p.m. Announcement is mandatory for group visits.
Patrijarha Rajačića Street 9, Sremski Karlovci
Phone: +381 (0)21 881 365 (announcement of visits); +381 (0)64 296 9324
E-mail: info@vinarijabajilo.rs
Website: www.vinarijabajilo.rs
Text: Gordana Stojaković
Photographs: Aleksandar Milutinović
Tourism Organisation of the City of Novi Sad is not responsible for changes in information and services.
The text posted in: July 2021
[1] Transcription of the grape variety names is given according to: Cindrić, Petar and Vladimir Kovač (2007) “Vinogradarstvo i vina“ (“Viticulture and Wines“) Fruška Gora. Ed. Nebojša Jovanović and Jelica Nedić. Pg. 498. Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike.
