Chateau Tamagne, Russia

The grapes-gondolas reception sideTaman, Kuban (southern Russia)
Chateau Tamagne is part of one of the biggest wineries of Russia, Kuban Vino. As its name hints to those who remember their geography lessons, it is located near the village of Taman in the Taman peninsula in Kuban, southern Russia.
For historic reasons rooted in the Soviet socialism, Russia has had for years only industrial-size wineries. These were more kombinats by the way than wineries in the European sense of the word. These facilities were producing wines of low quality for the masses and as grapes were not produced massively enough for the needs of the soviet masses, this «wine" was either completely artificial (i.e. made with conzentrat) or it was made with various imported bulk wine from other socialist countries which was later reconditionned, sometimes with additional sugar and SO2 to conform to Russian taste. With the demise of socialism and the comeback of the free enterprise, this type of large wine-production facility survived. Chateau Tamagne is one of the major industrial wineries that have been steadily improving the quality of their wines through investment in modern tools and with the help of foreign consultants.
This visit gave us a glimpse of how a giant winery looks like in Russia, taking into account that Chateau Tamagne, unlike some other industrial wineries, makes wines from grapes grown in the region.

A truck unloading grapes into one of the lined crushersChateau Tamagne is a component of Kuban Vino which itself is part of Ariant, a wine & spirits-centrered holding which controls three major companies : Ariant, the mother company, a food-industry giant based in Chelyabinsk in the Ural, Yujnaya, a giant agricultural business managing some 6500 hectares of vineyards, and Kuban Vino, the giant winery which has the lead share on the Russian wine industry along with its rival Fanagoria. The holding manages all the process of its wine, from grape growing to the distribution in shops in the whole of Russia. Its range of products include all sort of wines including semi-sweet and fortified, brandy, vodka, mineral water and sweet sparkling water. The company has heavily invested in new imported equipment and hired foreign specialists like Jeröme Barret, a Frenchman from the Champagne Enology Institute, to improve the quality of its wines. Chateau Tamagne makes the upper-tier wines in the Kuban Vino winery. One of the vatrooms of Chateau TamagneKuban Vino was created originally in 1964 in the Soviet Union. It boasts that it is one of the largest winemaking complex in Europe, producing some 24 million bottles of wine made from natural grapes per year. The words natural grapes are important to note, because not all the wineries produce wine from grapes in Russia. Sometimes, when it’s not cheap imported bulk wine bottled and labelled as Russian, wine is made from various conzentrat liquids mixed with water and various additives including sometimes aromats. At Chateau Tamagne, which makes the upper-range wines of Kuban Vino, there is nothing of this sort,. its wine is entirely made from grapes grown by the vineyard arm of the group, Yujnaya. Just the counting of its allocated vineyard surface, which is 1600 hectares, helps understand that real grapes grown on Russian land were used for the winemaking. Combine harvesters (Chateau Tamagne's Yujnaya farm)The grape-growing mega-farm of the group, Yujnaya, takes care of the vineyards used by both Kuban Vino and Chateau Tamagne. The agricultural giant has according to its own data a total vineyard surface in production of 4776 hectares with average yields of 130,7 hectoliters/hectare. As I understood, Chateau Tamagne’s vineyards tend to have lower yields, as the winery makes higher quality wines. The open-air nursery at TamagneThe grape-growing farm also manages its own nursery and plantings. It employs about 5000 people [which makes more than one person per hectare if I’m right] and imports new varieties from Italy, France and from Yugoslavia [Croatia and Serbia, I guess].
I toured some of the vineyards with Maxime Gruner, the agriculture director of Yujnaya. The one we drove through in his Land Rover were located on the flatland, on a relatively rich soil [Actually much of the vineyard in the region lies on what looks like regular agricultural land, and I will only later during my stay in this area discover that there are hills and dry slopes more appropriate for vineyards]. Maxime Gruner, Agriculture director of Yujnaya Harvest is mechanized here, we’ll see from afar combines working in parallel. The size of the vineyard allows no alternative.
Maxime Gruner works here since 1976, he joined the vineyard kolkhoz just after graduating from the Krasnodar Agricultural Institute in Krasnodar. The oldest vineyards of the farm were planted in 1982-1984. Most have been planted recently [the region hasn’t yet reached its pre-Gorbatchev vineyard surface]. He says that usually they don’t use older vines, they prefer the younger ones. The region went through serious frost problems 10 or 12 years ago and many vines died, he says, and they had to replant massively. Younger vines also tend to recover more easily from the frost. The vineyardsWe drive to the biggest block of vineyards in the Taman peninsula : 1300 hectares.... Asked about the use of vineyards planted on a relatively-rich soil on flatland, Maxime Gruner says that they are used to work on these conditions, and he adds that they don’t use the hills because of the volcanic nature of their soil. He says that the yields are 10 tons per hectare in average, with certain varieties having higher yields, like the ones used for sparkling wines. The quality wines here are made with lower-yields vines.
The varieties grown here are for reds : Cabernet-Sauvignon, Merlot, Saperavi, Krasnostop, Amour (several hybrids). For the whites :Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Riesling, Aligoté, Traminer. Weighing & grape analysis at the winery doorThereafter, we visit the facility with Caroline.
Near the gate of the winery, there’s the weighing platform first, where the incoming load arriving by tractor-pulled gondola or by truck is not only weighed but also briefly analysed for sugar and Ph. It’s visually surprising : a sample of juice is taken from within the grapes load with an articulated and motorized device which seems to crush grapes deep inside the load and funnel the sample through a pipe back to the lab located on the side of the weighing platform. Inside this lab, white-coated chemists check the data and take into account to decide what to make exactly with the grapes. The unloading line outside the wineryThen, the tractor or truck unloads the grapes in the crusher/destemmer. There are 7 such crushers in line, each with a specific variety depending of the harvest of the day. When we visited, there were 2 for the Traminer, 2 for Pinot Blanc, 2 for Chardonnay and 1 for Krasnostop. These multiple crushers allow a swift work as gondolas can be unloaded in parallel. Tractorss with Gondola and trucks come and go from the vineyards, unloading their load continuously into the crushers. This is the high season of harvest and the machine harvesters work all over the region. The crushers lineOnce you walk in the huge building along which the trucks unload the grapes, you can see how the crushers work, with a big stainless-steel screw bringing the grapes inside. Stems and leaves picked by the machine harvesters are separated from the grapes, which are then pumped either into fermenting vats or pressed. The crushers being in the basement, the grapes go down without pumping. The machines are all Diemme Kappa 25, and the winery has invested in many French or Italian tools for its modernization. The presses lineThese huge presses are made by Diemme, they can hold 100 tons of grapes each. Each of them is connected to its crusher below with tubes. The time for the press can last 3 hours.
It's important to notice that the place is immaculate, with an easy to clean type of lining on the ground on the presses level. Fermentation vats for redsThen we walk outside at the other end of the building to see where these big metal pipes pump the grapes for fermentation. 3 parallel tubes bring the red grapes out there in this outside vatroom for vinification. This is a fermentation under 18 ° C with skins, the stems (and leaves) have been taken off by the destemmer. Yeasts are added for this stage of course. There are 16 of these vats here. Sterilization vats for Kagor winesA bit further, we arrive near a few vats which are used to heat the wine at 75 ° C. The process which involves the juice with stems and seeds lasts one full day, but this is for the traditionall Russian sweet red Kagor wines only. This heating process is intended to give tannins, aroma and color. These wines are sweet wines used for religious purposes, and Russians of the older generation like the sweet wines.
After this heating process and the following cooling down, the juice is pumped into fermentation vats elsewhere. The fining vatsThis particular vatroom is used for clearing of lees the juice, if I understood correctly. Here, with the help of Bentonite or other similar material, the juice is cleared, using also presuure to do the process.
After this stage, the juice goes in fermentation vats. Big-size insulated vatsWe'll se then several vatrooms with different type of vats belonging to different years, some dating from the soviet years like these ones. These cuves can be used for fermentation or storage. Some of these vatrooms hold 600 000 decaliters of wine altogether. But Caroline adds that the storage capacity of the vats in the outside is 1,2 million decaliters.
On a corner of one of the vatrooms, there are a couple dozens vats for experiments.
The enologist, who is called the director of production at Chateau Tamagne, is Mr Vladimir Yaroshenko.
While the mother winery Kuban Vino makes 2 million bottles a year (including Chateau Tamagne as I understood), Chateau Tamagne's own output is 500 000 bottles.
Chateau Tamagne employs 80 people altogether (not counting the vineyard workers, which are employed by Yujnaya, the farm). In september, more people are temporarily hired for the harvest. Another vatroom at TamagneChateau Tamagne positions itself on the quality sector of the big wineries. For that, in addition to investments in machinery, it hired a French consultant to determine the improvements to bring on the winery practices. This consultant is Jerome Barret, he came here regularly to follow the installation of the new tools and transmit his knowledge.
At Chateau Tamagne, the number of cuvées is about 18, most of them being reds. Retail price for Chateau Tamagne goes from 130 Roubles to 300 Roubles, which is in the lower tier of wine prices in Russia. Nadya The wines (kindly poured by Nadya) :
__ Chateau Tamagne Merlot 2009. Nose : cooked red fruits. The top of the vats are used for this wine, with the best quality of juice. Mouth : cooked cherries. Quite light-colored red wine.
__ Kuban Vino Cabernet 2009. Just the result of the prerss, says Caroline, this is a wine to drink now. No tannicity at all here, mouth so-so. Very light wine.
__ Chateau Tamagne Traminer 2009. With residual sugar (added). A bit aqueous, with light Muscat-type aroma, it seems to me. the label says 10,5-12,5 °.
__ Chateau Tamagne, cuvée Roze Tamagne. Cabernet-Merlot-Traminer. Very light red color, almost pink. Only 2nd year for this cuvée. Nice legs on the glass. A bit too warm but lets itself drink. Interesting candy feel, with a very light tannicity and the aerial side of Traminer.
__ Chateau Tamagne Muskat 2009. Added sugar on a dry-wine basis, I'm said. Pleasant feel, not too sugary actually. Some small lemon-peel bitterness at the end.
__ Chateau Tamagne Kagor 2009. Made with "red hunter", the 75 ° C boiler. Bottled july 28 2010. No year of vintage, I understand it's 2009. Made with Cab-Merlot-Saperavi. Nose is very encense, concentrated fruits. Bouche is sugary indeed, but that's interesting to drink this type of sugary wine which has still a following in Russia. Smelling the wine again, I realize that I prefer the nose, actually. 140 gr sugar and 16 ° alcohol here. Some of the wines at Chateau Tamagne

Thank you to Nadya and Caroline for their time and their help.

Comments

[Andrei]

Bonjour, Bertrand! Thank you very much for this nice review of you visit to Chateau Tamagne and very illustrative photos. I have refferenced to your materials in my recent blog. If you read Russian (I suppose you do! Since you have visited Russia several times:) you could have a look at http://afrikanbo.livejournal.com/69316.html
SPASIBO!, best wishes, Andrei.