Wine News (25)

Supporters at the new Donetsk stadiumDonetsk, Donbass (Ukraine)
In Ukraine like in Russia, drinking in the street is not automaticly associated with disorderly conduct, it's a tradition in a region which never had many pubs or bars and where the living standards made buying drinks in stands or in shops more affordable than going in a bar anyway. These pictures were shot a few minutes before a football match (soccer of course) where the Donetsk team Shakhtar was taking part (I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't catch who was the other team). Shakhtar means coal miner and that's why some supporters here wear a coal miner's hat. Don't play down the Donetsk team, there is a vibrant supporter life here and the city invested a lot in its Shakhtar brand, plus the spirits are particularly high with the opening of this new stadium in the perspective of the Euro 2012.
Beer was accessible right near the gate without restriction before this match, through several stands set up by the main Donetsk brewery Sarmat which makes a light beer that is a very honest drink. Groups of youths would grasp a half-liter glass and enjoy it before entering the stadium. Some guys seemed to have had more beer than necessary but everyone was cheerful and nothing bad happened. Take it as a proof that beer can flow at football events without necessarily provoking riots between supporters. In France I think that there are restrictions to the sale of alcoholic beverages near the stadiums and at times the bars in the vicinity of stadiums are even prohibited to sell alchohol before the match. It just translates into supporters bringing their own booze and even though they can't go through the gates with it, they'll probably drink more than if they had had to order the stuff at a counter.
The autumn is very mild in Donetsk and in the evening at dark you would see lots of small groups of young people sitting on benches in public parks or on Lenin square (Donetsk is a green city with many parks) drtinking beer, sometimes girls-only groups. A half-liter bottle of good Ukrainian beer costs 45 GRN (40 Euro cents) in a kiosk or in a shop and that's it.

Pork ears on the Donetsk marketUkraine is no doubt a pork lovers country. There's all sort of saucisses and pork meat on the markets. This is to the point that people tend to take some weight rapidly here. The general diet gives a large place to pork and the Ukrainian type of pork has more fat than say the one in France. My contact in Donetsk told me a funny story about an Ukrainian who travelled to France. this person was looking at the pork meat on sale on the butcher refrigerated cabinets and was puzzled by its aspect, saying disappointingly : your pork has no fat !. That's because pigs in France and pigs in Ukraine are not fed the same way. In Ukraine, the fat has to be very important, the winter is long and cold I guess and by tradition in the countryside you wouldn't kill the pig every other day so you would keep warm eating pork fat. Although this fat is less refined than the lardo di colonnata, salo (it's name in the region) is a delicacy for Ukrainians and some are ready to break the law and go a long way for the commodity, like these people caught at the Russian border near Donetsk on forest roads trying to smuggle into Ukraine tons of pork fat in three Volga M24 cars... caught red-handed smuggling pork fat, can you imagine ? What I don't understand is why the Russians impounded the cars and the fat. That's a pretty big punishment for something that was good for the Russian economy. I understand why traffickers prefer to smuggle people across borders, it pays more and there's no goods to loose in case of backfiring...Cool water for the fireman...I liked the setting of this giant advertising for Sarmat, the heavy-weight brewery based in Donetsk. I guess the words between the fireman and the pint of beer reads "estinguish the fire" in Ukrainian... This type of ad for beer or wine, which is mainstream in much of the world, is still forbidden in France and it's always a suprise to see such candid unbriddled advertising.
Sarmat may look a very local brewery but it is already part of the world game, having been purchased by SAB Miller to the Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov a couple of years ago. Sarmat could thus invest in modernization (12 million UDS - completed in may 2009) and expand in Ukraine. The Donetsk brewery, which makes several other brands, has a capacity of 18 million decaliters/year. The new owners want to develop the segment of more expensive beers to stay afloat in these difficult economic times.
Statistics for 2008 tell of a beer consumption in Ukraine of 242 million decaliters, this is a very good market and foreign big players are positioning themselves while the country is still very cheap. Most of the beer drank in Ukraine comes from four breweries : Obolon, Sun Interbrew Ukraine, Baltic Beverages and Sarmat.Chicken, bread and Ukrainian Cognac...Night trains and sleeping cars don't differ much from Russia's. And the people there also enjoy a good dinner with drinks before going to sleep. I'll mourn once more this world tradition shared also by the Japanese and which for some unknown reason disappeared among the self-conscious French travellers who think they must look like professionals and business types when they travel in their TGV, and never (oh my !) look like a simple human being happy to unwrap his food and open a bottle...In Ukraine, there are still some older-generation sleeping cars in circulation (I got one once) but they are still OK and the new ones are even better. You get 4 berths in a compartment with everything like rolled-up mattress, clean bed sheets and pillow with its clean pillow slip. Service is good, coffee or tea is brought to your compartment in the morning on demand. Like in Russia, there is this happy ritual of taking out hearty foods from the bags and of course the booze to go with it. Here it was a big size chicken (could have been turkey, it was so big), dark bread and a bottle of Ukrainian Cognac. Locally made Cognac is very cheap here, beginning at 1,5 Euro a bottle.
Another tradition in night trains in Ukraine is to change one's self before sleeping. The other people in the compartment leave for a few minutes with the door closed so that each person makes him/herself comfortable. The trains are not very fast and the railroad tracks aren't very regular, so it's a good thing to be laying down.Lavinia in KievThere's even a Lavinia wine shop in Kiev ! The French-Spanish wine shop which has also interests in Vinoteka Paradis in Moscow, opened this Kiev shop under its name. Like in Paris, there are bottles displayed on several panels with some bearing the "choice of the sommelier", "under 200 GRN" or "New product" necklet. Like in Paris, there is a restaurant attached to the wine shop. The wine list bears the touch of Marc Sibard with lots of natural wine and French artisan & organic estates. Here are a few prices that I took note of. There was no other customer in the shop and as the single visitor, I was taking notes here and there in the shop with shop clerks following me from afar and it must have set off alarms because a woman came after a moment and asked if I could stop taking notes (The Soviet Union ghosts are still around in Ukraine...). That said, she was very polite but I opted to abide to her wish.
100 GRN make 8,33 Euro or 12,4 USD
Bodegas Borsao, Campo de Borja 2005 (Spain) 172 GRN. Innurrieta 2006 (white) 171,75 GRN. Altano 2005 Douro (red) 175,5 GRN. Naia 2006 (white - Spain), special choice of the sommelier (forgot to note the price...). Chateau Musar 1996 (red) Lebanon, 606 GRN. Philippe Pacalet Gevrey-Chambertin 2003, 580,93 GRN. Urban Uco 2002 (red), Argentina, 213 GRN. A Lisa 2005, (red) Patagonia, Argentina, 390,34 GRN. Santa Digna (red) Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 (tagged as "new wine"), 103,20 GRN. Chateau La Grave, Fronsac 2004, 264 GRN, the 2003 being at 288 GRN. Chateau le Quyroux, 1ères Côtes de Blaye (red), quite a large choice of them, including Le Joyau du Chateau le Queyroux 2003 at 622,9 GRN. Chateau Le Puy 2002 (red) Bordeaux Côtes de Francs , 262,28. Coulée de Serrant 2004 (Savennières) 544 GRN. Domaine Breton, Perrières 2001, 388 GRN. Alsace Marcel Deiss, about 5 wines priced from 230 to 925 GRN.
The Lavinia wine shop doen't sell alas any wine from Georgia (Gruzia) or Ukraine. Georgia is the producing country with several very interesting wines, I've been said. We had dinner in a fish restaurant in Donetsk with several French expats, and one of them who has a certain wine culture and travels extensively through the region told me that he had several very correct wines served in restaurants in Georgia, but he said that you just don't find these wines in the shops in Georgia.
To reach Lavinia from the train station (an easy walk), take the large boulevard (Komintern street) in front of the station in direction of Kreschatik and turn right on the first major street, this is Zhylyanskaya street, it will be righthand in a steel and glass building.Lavinia59 Zhylyanskaya ulitsa - Kievphone +38 044 569 57 00www.lavinia.com.uaPolyana wine shop - Kiev (not my picture, sorry)I was given a flyer in the street in Kiev just before coming back to France, and guess what it was about ? All wines and spirits in there, very interesting litterature especially on that rainy day. Too bad I didn't have time to visit one of the two Polyana shops, that was exactly what I wanted to find in Kiev : an extensive selection of wines from Georgia (called Gruzia here) and Ukraine. This is definitely the place top go for a try of what the region can offer, the selection being obviously of better quality than what the ordinary shops or the kiosks offer. If you read Cyrillic you can have an idea of the wines and prices through this Downloadable Catalog (pdf) (takes a few seconds), Georgia wines are on pages 14-15 and Ukraine wines are on page 16-17. See pages 30-31, they have also wine courses. Leafing through the pages, it seemed to me that the selection was honest and the prices affordable, although moreon the 6-bottle tag than for he singles. Again, 100 GRN make 8,33 Euro or 12,4 USD. First price is when 6 bottles are bought, second price for singles (they also sell by 3 bottles).
Here is an extract of the French wines pages. After a few table wines (Chardonnay/Sauvignon or Syrah/Merlot) for example 53,86/63,43 GRN or 76,27/89,81 we find a selection of wines from the Loire, Burgundy and Bordeaux. oddly, the vintage year is sometimes missing. Albert Bichot Petit Chablis 168/207. Albert Bichot Chablis 192/238. Chateauneuf du Pape Chapoutier Bernand 439/542. Sancerre Alphonse Mellot Cuvée Edmond 585/723. Alphonse Mellot Sancerre la Mousière 292/361. Didier Dagueneau Fumé de Pouilly 2005 611/755. Chateau le Crock Cru Bourgeois 1996 370/457. Chateau le Crock Cru Bourgeois 2001 401/495. Albert bichot Puligny-Montrachet 532/657. Alsace Trimbach Riesling 2004 256/317. Alsace Zind-Humbrecht Riesling 2004 446/551. Alsace Frick Bihl 2005222/274. Alsace Deiss (no other info) 242/299. Chanson Chassagne Montrachet499/616. Chanson Rully 194/239. Chablis Grand Cru la Chablisienne Les Preuses 704/870.
There a good selection of Italian, Spanish and New World wines.Polyana Vino Market12A Boulevard Observatorna - Kiev10am-10pmphone +38 044 272 16 16www.polyana.kiev.uaBeer party in a night trainThis was on another trip in a night train. The old lady was probably thinking that this foreigner was crazy to take pictures of bottles of beer. We were three people who had already eaten before boarding the train and a beer would make it just fine. One nice features of the Ukrainian trains is that in the new sleeping cars, there's a light signal in each compartment telling you when either of the car's toilets is vacant or occupied (green or red light). Just what you need when you have you pint of beer and need to go there from time to time...We each had our own favorite and mine was the one in the middle, a Slavutich 'Mintze", a dark velvety beer, very onctuous and strong (7,5°). Mintze means strong. Probably a well-made beer, doesn't knock you down. Costs 55 GRN (50 Euro-cents) in shops in 50cl bottles. There's another one that I tasted (not on the picture), a non pasteurized beer by Obolon, one of the four beer giants in Ukraine. The label indicated the time of the brew and it had to be drunk in a limit of 45 days. Didn't like so much that beer, it seems to lack freshness and the foam didn't last. Felt pretty tired after drinking it. The Sarmat is a light blond beer, not bad but not exceptional. A good beer still. I also had a few sips of the one-liter bottle on the right. It was a Tchernigivskie Svitlie. Let's itself drink easy.Alcohol section in a food shopFor the cheapest booze, the ordinary food shops azre the best place to go. In Ukraine, there are still many food shops organized like in the times of the Soviet Union : you walk into the shop and there is a counter all around the shop with the shop clerks and the goods behind on the shelves. You must ask what you want and pay for it. During the Soviet times you would also have to pay to someone and get the goods further along the counter. I shot this picture in such a food shop with counter. Among these bottles lined on the other side of the counter, there were indeed very cheap bottles, with many vodkas at about 2 Euro for a 75cl bottle. The Polyana shop doesn't sell this type of low quality vodkas or Cognacs and I didn't try any of these hard spirits.Chernobyl walnuts vs French walnuts...I bought these walnuts on the left on a market in Kiev, and the ones on the right are ordinary French walnuts that I picked in the Loire. These big walnuts were good although the shell was so thick that you couldn't always get the whole fruit out. An other strange thing : Since the day I ate them I'm glowing at night, that's funny, I see all my digestive track like with an isotope scanner... Bad joke I know but too tempting.
Seriously, the markets in Ukraine offer nice products (I liked what I saw in Donetsk), and I feel that many sellers do grow the vegetables and fruits that they sell. Plus you have many babuchkas (grandmas) selling things from their garden, and I'm pretty sure that's it's all organic. I bought them a bunch of dill (aneth in French, укроп - Ukrop in Russian). I love this grass and would eat it with everything. The Russians say Ukrop has plenty of medicine use, but I think it's just the perfect condiment for the Russian diet. I also bought dill seeds even though I have new ones every year from the initial batch that I bought in Russia.
Digressing on another topic : the mushrooms were scarce this autumn in France, and there are comparisons here with the harvest 2009 and its low volumes : I've been on the hunt for mushrooms in september when everybody I know in the Loire was saying it was useless there was nothing to pick. I did have a hard time, the drought was such in summer and late summer that there wasn't enough moist for mushrooms. But taking profit that everyone was giving up on mushrooms, I ended up finding a few of them [pics left and right - I just picked the boletus]. Makes me think to what the vignerons were saying this year, very low yields but perfect health of the grapes. In the woods, there were very little of these slugs who compete unfairly with us mushroom pickers. The ground was so dry that I guess they would have spent all their own moisture just by wanreding around...A fish mealNow, Ukraine seems to offer even better deals than Russia for the fish preparations and smoked fish. One day in Donetsk, I took a tramway to the market (line # 1 after the new stadium). Public transport is quite easy in Ukraine, all rides (Tramway, bus, trolleybus) cost a 1-GRN bill which makes 8 cents of Euro. A ticket-woman walks to you after the bus leaves the bus stop, you pay her and she hands you a ticket. Once in the market, I wandered in the alleys of the market, vegetables, meat and other stuff, some alleys being in the open, some with a light protection from the rain. One of these alleys had a several fish stands and when I stopped in front one of them [pic on right], I thought uh-oh, that's utmost interesting. I saw this price tag on the fish on the front, thinking, I must be wrong, what's this 24 GRN for ? it must be for 100g or for a piece, not a kilogram... It was indeed for a kilo, 2 Euro for a kilogram of smoked fish... I bought a couple of them first and we had them the next day, makes a casual dinner with a Slavutich beer. Just delicious, the fish which may be herring is lightly smoked, very little salt added if any, and it has all its intestines and sometimes eggs. The fish meat is soft and juicy, almost as if it was raw. Very different from the Russian Vobla which is very dry and brings a different sort of pleasure. There were other, bigger fish like mackerel at 50 GRN/kilo, salmon at 55 GRN/kilo and other string-held fish with no name tag.
If you visit the Donetsk market, there's a self-serve cafeteria on the first floor of the Dome-like building where you can have a three-dish lunch (including an excellent soup) for less than 1,5 Euro.

Comments

[Iris]

Happy to follow you once again to the eastern countries (I remember the home-brew article with the distillatin machine in the grass...)- it's all very interesting, like usual here!