In the Ukrainian vineyard, all the indicators were green before the war

Everything was going well until 2014 and the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Ukraine then lost more than half of its bottles – the best, some would say, or the most famous. Production has fallen to 670,000 hectoliters per year, fifty times less than in France, a country of comparable size, according to an article in the magazine Capital published on March 6, 2018. However, this amputation did not destroy the vineyard, on the contrary. As a nationalist reflex, Ukrainians have taken to drinking locally. With this consequence: production has increased each year by 7% to 9%. And consumption jumped 10% in 2019. France was then its second supplier after Italy.

The culture of wine was therefore growing in Ukraine, one asset among others aimed at uniting a nation. Also to develop tourism. His vineyard was getting organized, home production was beginning to reach the international market and his imports of foreign wines were expanding.

Prohibitive purchase

Ukrainian interest in their wine was also boosted by the devaluation of their currency in 2014 and 2015, with the hryvnia losing two-thirds of its value against the dollar. The purchase of foreign wines was prohibitive – except for the wealthiest – while a bottle of Ukrainian wine cost on average between 3 and 6 euros. Hence the recent appearance in kyiv of uniquely Ukrainian wine bars, such as Like a Lokal’s, as was still said Capital.

The situation was therefore optimal before the war. Which obviously destroyed this dynamism, and more than that. The only vineyard far from the fighting is that planted in Transcarpathia, a mountainous and tourist region in the west of the country, renowned for its thermal springs and ski resorts. The white wine is coveted there and the vines, dynamic, with the added bonus of nine festivals dedicated to wine in the region, attracting 150,000 visitors a year, according to its tourist information center.

On the other hand, in the east of Ukraine, around the Black Sea and not far from the Crimea, where the mild climate with a Mediterranean tendency is favorable to the vine, a large vineyard has been graze by fights and some of the most appalling destruction. One of the main areas of vineyards is around the towns of Kherson, recently taken by the Russian army, and Odessa.

Increase the quality

The French oenologist Simon Blanchard, consultant in particular for the Shabo wine company (1,500 hectares of vines), in the Odessa oblast, remembers, admiringly, the mild years in this former kolkhoz, bought in 2003 by the family Georgian Lukuridze, so that Ukraine emerges from a culture of alcohol and moves towards that of wine. “They’re no jokes at Shabo’s!” They are not joking! »

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