{"id":670540,"date":"2026-01-03T05:43:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:43:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670540\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T05:43:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T05:43:19","slug":"russian-winemakers-think-theyre-ready-to-join-the-elite-our-taste-test-says-otherwise-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/670540\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian winemakers think they’re ready to join the elite – our taste test says otherwise | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

You’ve probably never had a glass of Russian sparkling wine before. Perhaps you never even knew such a thing existed. If that’s the case, Mikhail Nikolaev believes you’re missing out.<\/p>\n

He’s one of the sons in Nikolaev & Sons, a wine producer in Russia’s Krasnodar region, near the Black Sea.<\/p>\n

\"Mikhail<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Mikhail Nikolaev<\/p>\n

“If you’re looking for a kind-of-like Champagne that is not made in Champagne, you have, obviously, the British options, you have Northern Italy, and you have us,” he tells me, across a table inside the vineyard’s stylish restaurant.<\/p>\n

His father started the business two decades ago. Standing outside the Tuscan-style visitor complex that is now at the centre of it, I can see hills all around me carpeted in rows of grapevines.<\/p>\n

They specialise in sparkling wine, from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir varieties, and follow the traditional method of production, which involves ageing the wine on dead yeast cells, known as “lees”.<\/p>\n

\"Some<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Some of the few remaining grapes after the harvest at Nikolaev & Sons vineyard<\/p>\n

Big ambition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Champagne and a lot of English fizz is made in the same way, hence Mikhail’s comparison.<\/p>\n

“I know it’s going to sound maybe a little pretentious, but climatically, we have the potential to be within the top sparkling regions of the world,” he says confidently.<\/p>\n

International recognition will have to wait for now, though.<\/p>\n

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put paid to that, with sanctions cutting off Western export markets.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But while conflict has constrained growth abroad, it’s had the opposite effect at home, where sanctions have forced Russians to buy more domestic vintages to quench their thirst.<\/p>\n

Nikolaev & Sons currently produces 60,000 bottles of sparkling wine a year but plans to double that by 2032 to meet the ripening demand.<\/p>\n

“Right now is the moment where we can potentially grow considerably,” Mikhail says. “I think that there’s not really some sort of cap.”<\/p>\n

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Patriotic push<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ten years ago, local wines made up a quarter of the Russian market, but now they account for nearly two-thirds of all sales, after sanctions reduced the availability of foreign wines and made them a lot more expensive.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin has also engaged in a patriotic push of local produce, to help offset the economic impact of sanctions.<\/p>\n

You can see it on the supermarket shelves, where Russian wines now dominate and are heavily promoted.<\/p>\n

But are they actually any good? If sanctions were lifted, would European imports reclaim their top spot? How do the two compare?<\/p>\n

\"Barrels<\/p>\n

Image:
\n Barrels of wine at the vineyard<\/p>\n

“If we are talking about mass market wines, there is no difference,” Denis Rudenko, a member of the Russian Sommelier Society, tells me.<\/p>\n

He’s been a sommelier for 25 years and has followed the local wine industry’s transformation.<\/p>\n

Russia doesn’t have many “collectables” yet, but he believes it might within the next two decades. That’s the theory, at least.<\/p>\n

Time to put it to the test…<\/strong><\/p>\n

At an upmarket wine bar in Moscow, we’ve set up a blind tasting – a Russian Riesling (wine number one) versus a German Riesling (wine number two). Which one do punters prefer?<\/p>\n

“The second one,” replies our first volunteer, unsure why.<\/p>\n

Another sip\u2026”It’s lighter,” she says.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her choice is matched by a man on the next table, but for different reasons.<\/p>\n

“The second one has more nuanced flavours,” he says after careful deliberation. “The first is more acidic.”<\/p>\n

One more table over, and it’s the same again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

“I like how the first one smells,” a blonde-haired woman says, “but I prefer how the second one tastes, it’s softer.”<\/p>\n

So, a win for the Western wine. Three-nil. Wine patriotism only goes so far, it seems.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You’ve probably never had a glass of Russian sparkling wine before. Perhaps you never even knew such a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[332],"class_list":{"0":"post-670540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-russia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115829578852840408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}