RAHOVEC (Kosovo) - GIDDY over the joy of freedom, the owners of the Stone Castle winery raised toasts to independence from Serbia last year, putting out of mind the fact that they had just lost one of their key clients.

Winemaking in the rolling hills of Kosovo is one area that has been badly hit after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.

Stone Castle in Rahovec is the only one of four state-owned wineries dating back to the Yugoslav era to have been sold successfully. Two Albanian brothers living in the United States bought it in 2006, and it now produces 90 per cent of all Kosovo's wine.

In the 1980s before the wars that broke up Yugoslavia, the winemaker produced 60 million litres of wine a year, of which 40 million litres was shipped by train to Germany.

In 2008, Stone Castle produced only 10 million litres (2.2 million Imp gallons) and exported 95 per cent, mainly to the European Union and Serbia, its former ruler, before it banned Kosovo goods.

'We sell zero in Serbia,' said Shani Mullabazi, the manager of Stone Castle vineyards and winery. 'Serbia was a very important market for us.' Now he says Stone Castle is looking at the international market as the only way to survive and make a profit by buying grapes in to supplement its production and selling abroad.