Uka Wine, Laknas: Ceruja and the Wild Vines of Albania
Laknas, Tirana
Flori Uka grew up in Laknas, in the countryside just outside Tirana, on the farm his father, Professor Rexhep Uka, started in 1996. Flori is the first in his family to make wine. He spent five years working in wineries in Friuli and Veneto and two years studying enology at Udine and Conegliano, then came home with one idea: to rediscover what Albanian wine could be. He founded Uka Winery in 2005, and we started working with him in 2022.
"A winemaker is to wine what a conductor is to a symphony."
Flori Uka
Albania has a long history with wine and many grapes of its own, a history held back under the Ottomans and later under the dictatorship. Even so, almost every rural family still grows grapes, and some of their native varieties have been there for hundreds of years. Flori works with nearly 200 of these families across the country, each with less than a hectare of vines, in something close to a cooperative. Some of their vines are close to 200 years old and still grow on their own roots. His aim is to learn which native grapes do best in which places, and to make the winery somewhere wine lovers from anywhere can come and taste Albania in a glass.
The wine we always end up talking about is Ceruja. Nobody planted the vines it comes from. Each year, Flori's workers go out into the hills looking for wild vines that grew there on their own, and they harvest whatever they find. Some years that is a fair amount of wine and some years very little, and there is no way to know in advance. One of our customers described it as mineral and well balanced, with an aftertaste unlike any white he had tried.
Flori also spends a lot of his time online, sharing Albanian food, wine, and culture with his followers. When we presented Albanian wine in Singapore, Uka came with us.
At a Glance
Laknas, Tirana · Winemaker Flori Uka · Native and wild grapes · With Me Zemër since 2022
Where to Start
Ceruja, while there is any. Some years there is very little of it.