(Passport Magazine December 2009)
The past two Passport wine articles covered the Russian and Ukrainian wine industries respectively. Although there is seldom news on Russia’s wine industry to report, during October Jancis Robinson, one of the world’s best known wine experts, visited the Kuban to see several wineries that employ Australian flying winemaker John Worontschak: Fanagoria, Mysakho and the remnants of Sauk Dere. The results of this pioneering visit by a western wine journalist were reported in the Financial Times on October 24 in her article “Russia’s wild world of wine.” Ms. Robinson was able to sample some of Mr. Worontschak’s excellent work with some of the wines from Fanagoria and Myskhako. There is not much left of the Sauk Dere. I visited a few years ago; the remnants, primarily a collection of older wines, were acquired recently by Myskhako.
Ms. Robinson also visited Abrau Durso, Russia’s historic sparkling wine producer on the coast near Novorossisk, but unfortunately in the brief visit did not have a chance to see Chateau Le Grand Vostock, which is clearly by an order of magnitude or two Russia’s leader in terms of modern wine production.
The problem with selecting a Russian wine, as Ms. Robinson pointed out in a later article is “sorting out which wines labeled as Russian are made with some or all Russian-grown grapes and which constitute the 70% or so that contain non- Russian wine imported in bulk.” The industry has been glacially slow to change, but during the past two years there have been several other, young promising developments in the region. Ms. Robinson’s visit brings hope that others will follow to shine some light into a region that surely will have more attention during the run-up to the 2014 Olympics. Read more…
