Wine News (12)

Selling Russian wine in BulkThere are many such wine shops in Russia where Russian wines (and usually only Russian) are sold by bulk. They often have this nice cask-imitation decoration, but not always (see pic on left). The wines come from the Kuban region in Southern Russia not far from the black sea, near Krasnodar. The woman here kindly filled a small plastic glass so that I could taste the available wine. The "HET" signs (Niet means No) indicate that there was a shortage for many wines that day in that shop). You can buy a liter or more of sweet or dry russian wines, and the people operating these tiny shops can be very knowledgeable, like Valery on the left, pictured here in his bulk-wine shop in the market of Nizhniy Novgorod. First you can see that he keeps many of his wines in a fridge. He knows a lot of things about the region of Anapa in Kuban, region where he is from. He made us taste several wines from there and even at some point had us rince our mouth with a wine to better appreciate the following one. That hints at a good knowledge of wine tasting rules. I bought there a liter of Chardonnay from Anapa for 130 Rbls (3,7 Euro or 5 USD), a bit oxidized but a better one than the sweetened sorts. This is a typical per-liter price for russian wine in bulk.Filling Bottles from a Sacred SpringRussians have always had a true passion for purity and sanctity and it translates today like it did yesterday in their love for pure water from holy springs. They'll go out of their way and drive dozens of kilometers to meditate, pray and bring back some of it. The roots for this feature of the russian culture are very old, as the ancient slavs already revered sacred springs. And in spite of the widely publicized horror stories about pollution in Russia, the Russian Heartland is mostly untouched by modern pollutants, and there are quite a number of religiously-revered springs throughout Russia, the most well-known being the one in Diveyevo, a Russian Orthodox convent and pilgrimage spot which also had its martyrs during the communist years. I still have a small bottle of Diveyevo's holy water back in France from a previous trip (It slowly evaporates through the tiny cork).The picture above was shot at a little-known sacred spring : Bieloglaznovo (белоглаэово), in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast (region).

When you're responsible of a wine tasting like I was an afternoon in Nizhniy Novgorod, smiles like Nadezhda's are gold. And even though you know that Russia has one of the highest ratio of beauties per square kilometer, it is always a shock, especially when one of them smiles AT YOU...
She was among the two dozen people who came in a Restaurant named Tretiatovka, on Alexeievskaya street (третъяковка, алексеевская ул.), formerly Dzerjinskaya street. The restaurant is owned by investors who, like with the two other bars that they own in town, try to bring culture and attitude in these food & wine venues, with for example Art exhibitions, and books at disposal of the patrons. I tried to share my passion and relative knowledge of french wines with demanding Russian wine lovers like her, and could test again how things related to wine are high on the scale of new trends in Russia. They are eager to learn, and with an easier access to foreign wines in the next years, they'll accumulate more experience and build their taste. Vodka Shots with Beer in a BarThe men in the background are drinking vodka with beer like some people do in Russia: They each ordered a small glass of vodka (50 or 100 gram from what I saw) alongside a big glass of beer (1/2 liter), and began with the vodka shot, chasing it down with beer afterthen. The practice, which I never tried and highly disrecommend, is designed to amplify the effect of alcohol on the brain and to get quickly intoxicated. It is called Ёрш (Yorch) in Russian. In russian slang, the image associated with it is "Polirovat" (полироватъ), or "polishing down".
The picture was shot in a nice local bar (named Kabatchok, or кабачок) in an industrial part of Sormovo along the Volga, near the shipping yards and a derelict former submarine factory. In addition to being nice and relaxed, the bar was cheap, with a 1/2-liter of draft beer at only 10 Rbls (0,28 Euro or 0,4 USD).Old Bottles of Zhirinovsky vodka...The International Heral Tribune had a story recently about the sale of the Zhirinovsky brand name, which sells a variety of products on the russian market since 1994, among them vodka, and which is owned by Russian businessman Sergei Kuznetsov. As you may know, Vladimir Zhirinovsky is a flamboyant and extravagant far-right politician in Russia. He tries to have this tough-looking face on the label picture to appeal to the hard-line voters/buyers. I had bought the two bottles on the picture above in a kiosk during a trip in Russia in 1995, but never could spot a single bottle of today's Zhirinovsky vodka in the vodka shelves of any store...From what I can judge on the picture in the IHT article, the new bottle is sleek with a softened look, and I would have liked to taste the vodka to see it it was better than the earlier version...So, knowing that the brand name is for sale for 77 million Rubles is interesting, but the Herald Tribune would be wise to check where on earth can this vodka be purchased... Vobla (Dry Fish), Black Bread and BeerThere are dishes which pair beautifully with beer, like this plate of dry (and lightly salted) fish that can be found only in the Caspian sea and, some say, in the Volga. Vobla is a very popular dish in Russia and you can buy these dry fish on stalls along the roads in the country or on the marketplace. They look like quite primitive food when seen by a foreigner's eye stacked on the open air, but this is an exquisite dish. The drying and light salting is said to allow a much longer conservation than a mere smoking process, and also you really taste the fish, not the smoking agents. The fish being dry, peeling the skin is arduous but worth the effort (feels sometimes like dismantling a mummy with your bare fingers), believe me. The taste is concentrated, intense, in spite of the meat's gross appearance. When there are eggs (the red things on the opposite side of the plate), it's divine. With this, the drink of choice is beer. This evening, we had Sibirskaya Korona beers (Siberian Crown).This was at Alexei and Albina's home where we had, after a relaxing stay in the russian banya (sauna), a great dinner of Chachliks with Ruskii Avangard black vodka (русский авангард) which was made with infusion of different things, among them black carrots and milk thistle.
You have noticed the lonesome (actually there were two of them) orange-juice-glass holder, toasting among our hard-spirit party: When it comes to drinking and driving, Russians respect the law carefully, and you'll often spot people in restaurants or at dinners with their glass of non-alcoholic drink. The law says zero alcohol at the wheel and of what I've seen around me, drivers have no problem to abide by it and still enjoy the evening.Listen to our late-night Russian singing...Wine Poster near Kropotkinskaya Metro Station (Moscow)I raise this giant glass of wine to Tyler Coleman (of DrVino.com in New York) who wrote a page in the last issue of Wine & Spirits (25th anniversary special edition -fall 2007) where he selected Wineterroirs as one of "the 5 best wine blogs that you probably maybe are not reading but should be"...That's the kind of surprise that is really heartening, especially when you hear about the story while in a far away country. Thanks to the people of Wine & Spirits too, who care about wine blogs and know they count. Viatcheslav pouring the Kuban CognacThe Russian trains are slower than the french TGVs but so much more friendly and unpretentious...
In a night-train trip in central Russia, the 4th person in our 4-berth open cabin (there are two other berths on the passageway side) was Viatcheslav. He was on his way to Northern Ural where he planned to hike and camp in the wild for two weeks with friends. He had some Kuban Cognac in his backpack for special occasions and offered us a glass: he took out this miniature glass bag with 4 tiny stainless-steel cups in it. The one-ounce volume, he said, was perfect to break the ice on a trip, and even allowed to offer a second glass to his friends of the day without emptying the bottle...which he did with us....
This is Russia...