Russian winemakers think they’re ready to join the elite – our taste test says otherwise | World News

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.

He’s one of the sons in Nikolaev & Sons, a wine producer in Russia’s Krasnodar region, near the Black Sea.

“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.

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.

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”.

Big ambition

Champagne and a lot of English fizz is made in the same way, hence Mikhail’s comparison.

“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.

International recognition will have to wait for now, though.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put paid to that, with sanctions cutting off Western export markets.

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.

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

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

Patriotic push

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.

The Kremlin has also engaged in a patriotic push of local produce, to help offset the economic impact of sanctions.

You can see it on the supermarket shelves, where Russian wines now dominate and are heavily promoted.

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

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

He’s been a sommelier for 25 years and has followed the local wine industry’s transformation.

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

Time to put it to the test…

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?

“The second one,” replies our first volunteer, unsure why.

Another sip…”It’s lighter,” she says.

Her choice is matched by a man on the next table, but for different reasons.

“The second one has more nuanced flavours,” he says after careful deliberation. “The first is more acidic.”

One more table over, and it’s the same again.

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

So, a win for the Western wine. Three-nil. Wine patriotism only goes so far, it seems.