Wine Law

3 patches are curiously viable even in the Southernmost areas of the Urals and the Russian Far East, near Vladivostok 3 . The five most important wine growing regions (Crimea, Krasnodar, Rostov, Stavropol and Dagestan) date their modern viticulture history back to the late XVIIIth and the XIXth centuries when the local traditions were resuscitated and put systematically on a large scale with the highest imperial approval. Profiting of the modern for the time agronomical developments Russian entrepreneurs created a whole new sector of the economy making proofs of good choice and exquisite taste 4 . By the end of the XIXth century the domestic viticulture was already firmly established even if the imported West European wines continued to dominate the internal market 5 . The launch of recreational activities on the Black Sea coast at the same period developed new prospects for combining the touristic interest with the wine production. However, the turmoils of the Russian history in the XXth century three times annihilated all these efforts 6 . One hundred years later a new start for this far-flung ancient terroir is under way with new political and climatic realities. Still in 2009 The Financial Times called the South of Russia a “virtually uncharted corner of the wine world” 7 . Even for the author, with her preconceptions of a foreigner about the Russian wine scene, as she putted it, it was then evident that “wine laws” are needed for the Russian market. Devastating seemed mere the fact that 70 % of the wine labelled as Russian was made up of bulk imports of cheap wine from around the world. Wine made from grapes grown in Russia itself accounted for just 20 % of all wine sold in the country. A trend though was clearly visible for the increase of the local production. 3 The most resistant to cold weather species Vitis amurensis is an endemic for the Russian Far East, it grows in the region of the lower Amur river and its crop is suitable for wine making. 4 Unusually, the grape-growing was developed in the most distant settlement of the Russian empire – Fort Ross in California, situated some 80 km north from San Francisco. Apparently it was locally so renowned that even after the Russians left it in 1841 the newcomers in the region used for years to find there reliable vine planting material (https://sonomacounty.ca.gov/PRMD/Planning/Historic-Resources/Dry-Creek- Valley/Early-Settlement/) . Today the nearby toponym Russian River designates one of California’s top producing wine regions. 5 Source: https://mirolubgroup.ru/vinnaya-karta-rossii-kak-razvivalos-vinodelie-na-nashih-territoriyah-ot- antichnosti-do-xx-veka/. 6 During the Civil war (1918-1922), the World War II (1941-1945) and lastly the Gorbachev’s Perestroika (1985-1990) when due to the anti-alcohol campaign allegedly up to 30 % of the vineyards were destroyed (https://news.rambler.ru/other/38827089-kakoy-uscherb-ekonomike-nanesla-antialkogolnaya- kampaniya-gorbacheva/). 7 Robinson, Jancis, Russia’s wild world of wine , 24 October 2009 (https://www.ft.com/content/773f1e3c- bf63-11de-a696-00144feab49a).