RUSSIA.

This country’s vitivinicultural history goes back 2500 years. Trading Greeks established vineyards on the northern coast of the Black Sea close to Rostov-on-Don. Generally, Russians prefer spirits and beers to wine, therefore made little effort to expand vineyards, and the climate is less than suitable for large-scale grape growing, being prone to extremely cold winters. Vines die at – 25 C and often the temperatures prevailing this far north are lower than that.

The U S S R (Union of soviet Socialist Republics) had sufficient satellite countries (Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan) to cover much of the needs supplemented with imports from Hungary, Bulgaria, Georgia, and Romania.

Additional demand, if and when it occurred, was covered by imports from Argentina, and Algeria with low-end bulk wine.

All wineries in the U S S R had to ship their wines in bulk to bottling plants located throughout the country. Quality varied a great deal, even from one bottle to the next in one case, and often bulk wine was sold directly from boxcars.

Most of the vineyards in Russia are around Krasnodar (44 N), Stavropol (44 N). Rostov-on-Don (47 N) and Dagesthan (42 – 44 N), a semi-autonomous region along the northwestern shores of the Caspian Sea.

Along the Don River, vines must be buried before winter sets in so as to protect them from freezing, and uncovered in spring; this is a time consuming and expensive undertaking.

Krasnodar krai (region) is responsible for 50 per cent of wine production in Russia, and rkatsiteli (a white grape variety indigenous to Georgia) constitutes 45 per cent of total wine output.

Aligote, traminer, and Riesling are some of the other white grapes planted.

Fore red wines, cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir, and saperavi, cabernet severnyi, and saperavi severny are planted. Cabernet severnyi and saperavi severny are hybrids developed by research stations because for their cold resistance. Severnyi is a hybrid of vitis aurensis and seianetze malengra.

Today, there is more than 10 privately owned wineries around the northern Caucasus, including Rostov-on-Don, and quality is improving with imported help from Europe.

Russians consume substantial quantities of sparkling wines and even developed a continuous sparkling wine production technology to satisfy demand. This technology yields acceptable, but never great sparkling wines.

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Tags: RUSSIA, Wine

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 6th, 2010 at 06:00 and is filed under Food & Wine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. tempo dulu February 8th, 2010 at 02:35

   Wow! I find it amazing that Russia produces any wine at all given its cold climate. If this is the case why don’t more cold countries produce wine as well? .-= tempo dulu´s last blog ..Obama Bar, Jakarta =-.

2. Ron@ used boats February 9th, 2010 at 15:50

   My wife is from the Ukraine and though the do drink wine its a distant second to vodka. On top of that the country’s winters and lack of relationship with neighboring countries as you named keep them from vinyard expansion.

3. alex February 9th, 2010 at 17:25

   as i know- they injoy vodka- which is very cheap, and beer- and they have some great wine makers- but, which are all coming from, independent states like Armenia, Giorgia- .-= alex´s last blog ..Valentine Flowers =-.

4. Илья February 10th, 2010 at 14:15

   Actually in Krasnodar – is not so cold. For example in Sochi – there are palms:) But actually in Russia local winemakers are no so popular – more people in my country (Russia) prefer by import wine -it has better quality, than ours

5. Alan Newman February 10th, 2010 at 18:22

   You simply cannot miss vodka there.

6. Morten Pedersen February 10th, 2010 at 22:33

   Thanks for the comments. This is about wine Alan.

7. Lars Fich February 11th, 2010 at 23:00

   I really like russian wines, i remember when I had my cup of it while I was in paris, it really felt good have russian wines they are experienced in making it.

8. hannah February 17th, 2010 at 08:41

   Russia is nice place to visit. There wines are very popular

9. Rob February 17th, 2010 at 19:11

   Vodka is cheap there, all because good wine exports to another countries But wine from Krasnodar is not bad

10. Jennifer March 2nd, 2010 at 08:20

    Like the other commenters on this post when I think of Russia I think of vodka first, but my friend who just got back from a trip through Russia came home saying she saw a lot of people drinking sparkling wines. She said that Krasnodar area wasn’t a bad place for wine, too

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