It's not about who ruled the land the longest. It's about what each empire did with the vines already growing on it.

• Under Ottoman rule, commercial winemaking in Serbia was restricted on religious grounds, so Orthodox monasteries in regions like Tri Morave, where Aleksandar Todorović now farms, kept vineyards alive as a religious exemption.
• Bulgaria's Mavrud, the grape behind Zagreus's Thracian Valley Pet Nat, survived nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule (1396–1878) the same way: tended in monasteries and rural villages after commercial production was curtailed.
• Geyerhof, the Kremstal producer behind our Zweigelt, has vineyard records dating to 1072, worked by the same family for 14 generations, nearly the entire span of Hapsburg rule in Austria and then some.
• Slovenia sits geographically and historically in between the two empires: solidly Hapsburg territory (Carniola and Styria), but its southern border regions, including Dolenjska where Zajc makes Cviček, absorbed repeated Ottoman raids in the 1400s and 1500s without ever falling under Ottoman control.
• Furmint, known locally as Sipon and the base of Matic's sparkling white, is the same grape behind Tokaji, the wine of the Hapsburg-aligned Hungarian court. Its spread across the empire's old borders makes it about as Hapsburg a grape as exists.

None of these producers are making a political statement. They're farming land their families or regions have always farmed, under whichever empire happened to be drawing the borders that century.