Lhe war of invasion that Russia has been waging for two months has serious consequences for the Ukrainian people. It also has less obvious ones in the wine sector. This is true for these two countries, but also for the neighboring states, with thousand-year-old vines, such as Georgia, Armenia or Moldova, long in the bosom of the former Soviet bloc. This is also true for France, which exports part of its production to Russia, where French experts provide advice.
With this issue, we propose to explore the geopolitics of wine in a bled or tormented region of the world. With its challenges and conflicts. Crimea, of which we publish a bucolic image here, is the perfect example. The vast Ukrainian peninsula overlooking the Black Sea, renowned for its Mediterranean climate and its wines prized by the tsars, was annexed by Russia in 2014. Since then, notably through its oligarchs, Moscow has invested heavily in this vineyard, until planting it intensely, wanting to make it its viticultural showcase and an agent of tourism development.
A complex equation
By losing the Crimea, Ukraine lost half of its vineyards. But she was not discouraged, developing her vines elsewhere for eight years, with the mission of uniting a nation and supporting tourism. Until the war destroys this dynamism. However, its actors are already thinking of rebuilding.
In Georgia, the world cradle of wine and a flagship country, both in terms of the quantity of bottles and the prestige of its vintages, particularly natural, but also in Armenia and Moldova, the challenge is a complex equation: increasing the surface area of vines, gain in quality, look ever more towards the European Union while emancipating from Russia, where the vast majority of wines from these three countries are consumed.
Russia is a different puzzle for France. Even if the bottles shipped represent a small market, the moral question is on the table: should we still trade, especially champagne, with a country that is bloodying Ukraine? A few months before the war, the Kremlin implemented protectionist measures in order to promote its vineyards. Thus, Russian sparkling wines can write the word champanskoye (“champagne”) on their labels. Disregarding standards. But the law, we know what Putin does with it…