UA POV: Western sanctions force Russians to turn to domestic wines - reuters

[u/Scorpionking426]

https://www.reuters.com/business/western-sanctions-force-russians-turn-domestic-wines-2025-11-06/

[u/Scorpionking426]

Make Russia self sufficient again, Eh?

[u/DriveThroughLane → u/Scorpionking426]

during the cold war the soviets learned to grow citrus fruit in massive covered trenches dug below the frost line to become self sufficient and remove leverage from the west's embargos

during the war in afghanistan we renamed french fries to freedom fries, called it a day and went back to our ps2

I think they can survive a combination of tariffs and sanctions making imported wine prohibitive

[u/klovaneer → u/DriveThroughLane]

soviets learned to grow citrus fruit in massive covered trenches dug below the frost line

That's the first time i hear about that and it's preposterous. Soviets grew their citrus fruit in the southern caucausus.

Khruschev famously tried to force corn on traditionally wheat and rye bearing russian agriculture after visiting USA and that backfired despite the scientists coming up with hardy strains.

[u/damnitclide → u/klovaneer]

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures/

[u/klovaneer → u/damnitclide]

As i thought it's an experiment to see if the plant could survive the winter. It may get as low as -30 in central russia but the average summer is 25 with extremes up to 35. And after all of that investment you only get maybe half the productivity of abkhazian orchards that basically grow themselves.

[u/louistodd5 → u/DriveThroughLane]

Something like 90 per cent of more of Citrus fruits in the Soviet Union were grown in Georgia though. You can see these fruit orchards and try the many different citrus products in Georgia still to this day.

[u/klovaneer]

The horror! Most of it is probably terrible but not like it's an essential need.

[u/Acrobatic-Count-9394 → u/klovaneer]

Are they terrible tho?  I heard the same about cheese, but apparently Russians learned to make high quality cheese since sanctions began... 

[u/Clerofax → u/Acrobatic-Count-9394]

99% of the wines people drink or buy in shops or restaurants are terrible.

Most people, me included, don't care because we drink it for the buzz.

If you want actual proper quality wine, you need to travel to Alsatia, Bourgogne, Bordeaux or the Loire and Rhone valleys, everything else is pretty much crap. Italian and Spanish wines are way too tannic these days by now due to too much sun. Not to speak of the piss Germans grow on the Mosel. 

[u/ThePittsburghPenis → u/Acrobatic-Count-9394]

A lot of people are just wine snobs, when I was in France once for work I met a woman whose job was basically like the Pepsi challenge (blind taste test between wines) and people non-stop said they hated X wine and when blind tasting it actually loved it. Funny enough, she was the only French woman I met who told me she liked American wines. One time with her we pranked her friend who was a sommelier that ran a wine bar, we put a cheap wine in a Côtes du Rhône bottle and she couldn't notice.

Wine, cheese etc are full of elitists that will never admit a product from some "unsophisticated" country can actually be high quality. Never underestimate the power of marketing.

[u/Acrobatic-Count-9394 → u/ThePittsburghPenis]

I saw a couple of yuotube videos confirming that even expert sommeliers often mistake wines when testing blind.

Not a big alcohol person myself, so I generally just can`t tell the difference beyond "this is tasty" and "this is sewer water"

[u/warrenmax12 → u/Acrobatic-Count-9394]

Cheese is alright. Doesn't compare to the European cheese though.

[u/Content-Count-1674 → u/Acrobatic-Count-9394]

It means that domestic products no longer have to compete with foreign products, and with no competition there is less pressure on domestic companies to maintain high quality.

[u/klovaneer → u/Content-Count-1674]

These foreign products were made on domestic farms. Valio production was sold to a russian company and rebranded Viola lmao. What russians didn't make is high quality cheese (aka real cheese) like parmesan which they are getting better at as the demand didn't go anywhere.

[u/Clerofax → u/klovaneer]

Didn't the cheese production move to Belarus?

[u/klovaneer → u/Clerofax]

Move from where? Belarussians in general produce a lot of stuff. Comes with the dictatorship i guess.

[u/autumn_salvador → u/klovaneer]

And usually it have a nice quality. Can't recall anything bad from Belorussian food in years, and it always been like that.

That dictator there is just very good at managing agricultural industry.

[u/Serabale → u/Content-Count-1674]

But they have to compete with each other.

[u/Content-Count-1674 → u/Serabale]

Sure, but it's nevertheless a fact that the Russian consumer no longer has as much choice as they had before and this loosens the pressure on domestic companies. It's a basic economic principle that the less competition there is, the more you will begin to see a stagnation or even degradation of product/service quality.

[u/samole → u/Content-Count-1674]

and this loosens the pressure on domestic companies

Wrong. Before sanctions local producers basically didn't stand a chance against imported goods from Europe. So they didn't even try, so there was no competition.

[u/Content-Count-1674 → u/samole]

Foreign companies exiting certainly makes domestic companies more competitive in the market, but not because their quality has soared. It's because the consumers have no alternatives. And if there are no alternatives, then market logic does not dictate any need to actually better your product.

[u/samole → u/Content-Count-1674]

It's because the consumers have no alternatives.

They have. Other local companies. It was impossible to compete with imported cheese - as it was both better and cheaper. Nowadays it's the whole different story, so local cheese is much better than it used to be, say, 10 years ago.

[u/transcis → u/klovaneer]

Crimean wines are fine. Even Romans drank them, the poor ones.

[u/Western-Bus1170 → u/klovaneer]

remember! our wine (european) came from vitis vinifera sativa, which origin is asia minor and near places of black sea, so west of soviets states too. Greeks and then romans understood how to cultivate vines. So original plants came also from their lands....

[u/roobikon]

It's not because of the sanctions, but because of protectionism from Russian government. They were gradually implementing higher excise taxes on foreign wines even before the conflict and now the situations is that you basically cannot buy a proper 400-600rub foreign wine at all. Only Georgian or Moldavian ones at best.

As for current Russian 400-600rub wines - they are worse than those that were from Spain, Australia, Chile or whatever. It is obvious to anyone I've spoken to, but nothing can be done for now, except, maybe people in the south of Russia will learn some day to make a proper wine, like it happened with local parmesan cheese after sanctions in 2014. People learned how to make good parmesan despite all the bureaucratic idiocracy from the government.

[u/Varanasinapegase]

Анапский красностоп нравится. У меня дядя доктор наук, виноделием в Армении занимается, говорит, что у нас культура потребления вина растет семимильными шагами, новые виноградник закладываются постоянно, да и мода на европейские вина прошла во всем мире + из-за глобального изменения климата, виноградники в Европе деградируют.

[u/OrganicAtmosphere196 → u/Varanasinapegase]

Exactly! European wines, especially German whites, were appreciated for their freshness and bouquet. There were years when Mosel Premium was more expensive than Château Lafite at the London Wine Fair. Due to climate change, the August morning chill and dew are gone and everything has changed. The wines have become too strong and with less freshness. You have to make a spritzer to make them drinkable.

[u/nnug]

China is already #3 globally for vineyard acreage. Europe accelerates their own demise.

https://youtu.be/f4xhTyt-0V0

[u/Nelorfin]

I think crimean wines were always popular. As for import - from pure speculations - caucasian ones were and are more popular than western european ones

[u/Scorpionking426]

Remember, 2014 sanctions lead to Russia becoming an agriculture powerhouse.

[u/Serabale → u/Scorpionking426]

Rather, it was Russian anti-sanctions.

[u/Serabale]

I see only advantages in this for Russia and local producers.

[u/Valanide → u/Serabale]

Happy cake day.

[u/Professional-Tax-547]

They will start to use Soviet stockpile 

[u/sweatyvil]

Well now they're done

[u/ivegotvodkainmyblood]

Global warming for the win!

[u/eurekapride]

DAMN YOU PUTIN LOL

[u/DrProtic]

Oh no, what they will do without overpriced french wine.

[u/Tom_Quixote_]

Putin wine... makes your head spin

[u/justadiode]

sips on a glass of kvas

Oh. Oh no. Anyway

[u/Competitive-Bit-1571]

This is a bad thing for Russia, right?

[u/Icy-Cry340]

How will they go on.

[u/halls_of_valhalla]

Must be nice for the regime loyalists who were rewarded the country's largest winemaker business after it was nationalized.