Russian Garage Wine

Guennadi Oparin checking his Merlot at his garage door Novorossiysk, Russia
The biggest surprise you can come across in Russia’s wine country which sits in the Caucasian region known as the Kuban, is to stumble by chance on a garage winery.
For the unsuspecting wine visitor staying at the surface of things, Russia can be looked at like being mirred for ever in industrial mega-production of wines of lower quality. If much of the wine sold under Russian labels is of dubious quality (with other questionable practices dwarfing the debate in Western countries about the use of additives to correct the wines), there is in this country a potential for outstanding wines. There are in this country a handful of inspired winemakers who have started making additives-free wines from well-chosen varieties planted on some of the best terroirs of this Russian region. What I tasted at Guennadi Oparin’s Semigorie garage winery gave me a delightful hint of what we could drink on a more routinely basis in Russia if the administration and the lawmakers behind the regulations got back to elementary common sense and let independant vignerons work as they want.

Semigorie We found this microwinery (микровиноделие - microvinodelye) by chance thanks to Lena’s inspired reading of a sign along the road in the vicinity of Novorossiysk saying «Here, garage wine» (in Russian : гаражное вино or Garajnoye Vino). She had heard about this garage-wine thing on the Internet and she took note of the place. As we stayed several days near Novorossiisk, we drove back there a couple days later for an unannounced visit, not really knowing what we would find at the other end of the dirt road near the sign. We couldn’t have dropped at a more appropriate time (for us at least) : the microwinery was entering its harvest of Merlot in the basement, and on the upper level of the nice open wooden building, Guennadi & Yulia Oparin, the owners, were tasting wines with Alexei Tolstoi, himself a home winemaker from near there.
In spite of an untimed interference which certainly disturbed Guenadi’s and Alexei’s schedules, we were warmly welcomed after presentation of the motives of our visit. The Merlot Gondola As their tasting was just beginning, we were invited to join and what we tasted here was more than convincing, were were swallowing delicious Russian wines made on the most artisanal way, all the while chatting with winemakers who knew what they were doing.
This is light years from much of what is produced around here, but oddly, our host Guennadi Oparin is the former general director of Russkaya Loza (русская лоза), a big winery of the Kuban region. When he quit Russkaya Loza, Guennadi says that he made a thorough reformating of his thinking about many things, including about what winemaking should be. Imagine : Russkaya Loza used to have an output of 17 million liters a year, this is enormous ! Even if it later downsized to a "mere" 1,5 million liters (something he considers was good for the overall quality), what he is setting up here in this new venture is about such a smaller scale and different quality that it must have represented a complete turnaround for him indeed... The vineyard at Semigorie Here, uphill from the large port city of Novorossiisk, Guennadi and his wife planted 24 hectares on purchased land particularly suited for wine-intended vineyards : Just at the upper border of the vineyard, I saw how the undersoil looked, thanks to the recent opening of a passage by a caterpillar probably (see this picture on right). The earth layer is really very thin here, and right under it's oblique strats where vine roots must look for nutrients and freshness. Can there be a more different soil than the one in the flatland where big wineries have their vineyards ? I remember what Jean-Michel Deiss told me earlier this year : On such a soil, the vine certainly ends up saying "I'll not make it", which turns in general into the best possible wines, while the vines which have it easy give watery juice...
On this vineyard, Guennadi planted Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Sauvignon (the three being French clones), and Rhein Riesling. The plantings took place 4 years ago and the vines are still very young but they produced their first vintage in 2009. Guennadi’s garage facility being small in terms of vats and volume, he sells most of the grapes to established wineries looking for quality grapes, including for example Ivan Karakezidi, another artisan winemaker (the first maybe to have launched a similar artisan winery) who, Guenadi says with a laugh, tends to pay late by the way.
The reason behind the small volumes of Guenadi’s winery is also a typically-Russian problem : it is virtually impossible for individual winemakers in Russia (as talented as they can be) to get a license to sell wine. The administration blocks most demands and years of filling paper forms and financing the normated infrastructure doesn’t help. For now, Guennadi can just pour the wines to his visitors, which is allowed as long as it happens inside the property. If the law changes (which is far from certain in the near future), then he could sell it outside and make more wine. Tasting in the lounge We taste his first vintage, comfortably seated in the reception room with view on the slopes :
__ Semigorie Merlot 2009. 100 % stainless steel. A delicious wine with liquorice aromas. Nice soft tannins, gourmand (chewy), that wine just lets itself drink so easily... No additives of any kind, all the way from the incoming harvest, no SO2 except to wash the bottles. First natural wine in Russia for me (and for my friends too who discover how real wine tastes). We feel good, and it’s hard to resist another pour. Vadim alone isn’t enjoying the feast because he is the one at the wheel, and Russians are very serious in their respect of the zero alcohol when driving.
With his former experience in a big winery and his present determination and expertise in real winemaking, I think that Guennadi Oparin can make a great job for the future of Russian wines. But this doesn’t seem to be an issue for the wine & alcohol administration, and he still can’t sell his wines up to now.
It seems unjust to me that the Russian wine lover can't freely purchase this wine. Especially that the question for a wine amateur in Russia is often as simple as "has this wine been made with grapes in the first place ?", and when it is actually made with Russian-grown grapes, the question is " how many other substances and additives have they put in there to make this wine taste so weird ? ". And oddly, all these industrial wines reffered to by this TV report and this other TV report (even if you don't understand Russian, you'll get the message about some doctored-or-artificial wines here) are fully legal stuff on sale everywhere in the country.Guenadi Oparin with chef Guelya Ksartadze Now, there’s a legal way to turn around the license blockade for talented individual winemakers in this country, and here is what Guennadi has created : a microwinery open to visitors, where he and his staff organize events and lunches (or dinners) in the course of which his wines are tasted and drunk. He just sells a service with visit, explanations and meal where his wine is enjoyed as an accessory item. The law in Russia allows individuals to make wine for themselves and drink it with friends, as long as there's no shipping for outside customers. You can see by yourself btw that many villagers make wine in their backyard, as heaps of dumped must lying in gardens testify. This indoor pouring of his wines is better than nothing at all, and that’s just too bad for people who would like to buy a few cases, this is at least a way to get the chance to swallow this. I can’t but strongly recommend to pay a visit to Semigorie if you travel in the vicinity of Novorossiisk : the menu is affordable and the georgian cook is very talented. And there are the wines of course... Yulya Oparin with daughter Lisa __ Semigorie Cabernet Sauvignon 2009, first vintage for this Cab at this garage winery again. Stainless-steel vat. Dark wine. Eucalyptus, encense, therebentine, spices aromas. Nice. 13,5 ° (I asked for this, the Bordeaux-type bottle having no label of course). Malolactic fermentation completed. In the mouth : well-integrated tannins for a Cab that young, nice concentration, lightly perly (no SO2). Again, so easy to swallow, a pleasure. Guennadi says that he has only 20 liters left of this wine. Unfiltered. I notice that the bottle is cold, Guennadi takes care of its storage conditions because it’s SO2 free. Again, that’s such a pleasure to drink this wine, we feel euphoric and happy to have come across this small winery by chance... Guennadi Oparin I must say a few words about the food here, Guennadi having shared some with us (my positive review isn’t motivated by his generous invite) : It’s of the same level as the wine : authentic products and materials cooked & prepared by a talented Georgian chef named Gelia Xahtadze (геля ксахтадзе). For example there was this freshly-caught fish (Carps) from a pond nearby, and there were fresh vegetables to go with. I may have the opportunity to say that again : Russia is a giant producer of organic foods, and this goes unreported by the mainstream media because most of it comes from individuals or small farmers who sell their products locally or make them for the family, but these products make a huge share of what the real country consumes. During the soviet era, there were no chemicals available for individual gardeners and the common citizen (who had to grow vegetables to survive) learnt to do without them. Nowadays, mosk gardeners keep their ancient farming methods, and they’re anyway not rich enough to buy Monsanto’s products and its likes. In spite of the fact that the the king of weedkillers has set foot in Russia and that similar, smaller Russian-based chemical companies are present, I think that the Russians will keep their organic ways because they have a deep-rooted love for real products. Future winemaker ? Back to the food and the Georgian cook. Gelia of course needs some Georgian ingredients for some of his dishes, for example the unique Georgian sauces that he prepares in the kitchen. Georgian things (including wine by the way) are impossible to find on the Russian market since the recent short war and the ensuing termination of commercial exchanges between the two countries. For these particular sauces for example, Gelia needs two Georgian rherbs named Tkemali and Kinza which are now unavailable here, so he gets them through a third country, Bielorussia, where they’re still exported. The result is these two translucid sauces, one greenish and the other redish, with lots of tiny green dots in both of them if I remember. Put some of these sauces on a slice of bread or on the vegetables, this is delicious. Lena could resist at the end to sip directly from the saucer... Guennadi says that he loves Georgia in spite of the recent feud between the two countries, and he adds that the two people are still the best friends on earth, he blames foreign interference behind the Georgian head of State for this unnecessary dispute between the two former Soviet republics. Guennadi Oparin tasting his Sauvignon As we’re sitting in the large guest room with large windows with view on the surrounding hills & vineyards, we see a gondola full of black grapes pulled by a small soviet-era caterpillar approaching the building. We go outside to witness the incoming harvest, you don’t see a grape harvest in russia every day, but it’s even more exceptional to see the arrival of picked grapes in a Russian garage winery... everything is hand picked here, and there’s some sorting before the clusters are poured in buckets into the crusher-destemmer.

Vineyard workers unloading Merlot into the crusher The two workers here are from Ouzbekistan. Good reliable workers, Guennadi says, and they don't have problems with drinking, or if they drink, it's very moderately. I didn’t ask about their lodging but I saw near the winery several small houses that I think could be intended to accomodate the workers. By the way, these workers from the former soviet rebublics are often called Gast Arbeiter like foreign workers used to be called in Germany. In France, it was common in the past for the estates to lodge the pickers for the duration of the harvest, but the mindless new norms imposed by the French administration for these accomodation quarters terminated this great tradition, as the vignerons were virtualy forced to finance the equivalent of several rooms of a two-star hotel for 2 or 3 weeks of harvest (or how normative bureaucracy can push for mechanization in the vineyard...). Here I think that these are the permanent workers who are lodged in these small houses. The "chai" of the garage winery The chai in the basement : a very small and clean facility indeed, but everything is there for the simple tasks of winemaking : a small press (it was outide that day, see on the picture with guennadi's wife and daughter), six 620-liter Letina stainless-steel vats where wine is currently fermenting, and a few locally-made casks with Caucasian oak. The cooperage’s name is Bondar. Guenadi lifts the vats’ caps one after the other to show the fermenting wine, there are ice bottles floating at the surface to cool the wine (see picture on left), with the fermentation foam overwhelming the whole. He fills a glass from the last vat on the left, this is Sauvignon, it’s been there since 3 weeks and it’s not tasting like Bernache (or Bourru) anymore, it’s already on its way to adulthood with the usual bitterness at this stage.
On the side of the "vatroom", there are two big grey plastic boxes full of must (picture on right). Guennadi says that they makes chacha (Чача) with it, some sort of local samogon with which he makes what we could call a brandy or a grappa. I find this really cool : this micro-winery is not only making natural wine, but it is making its own artisanal alcohol...
I understand that if Guennadi could open a winery and sale his wines and products in the outside, he would vinify much more grapes than today. The fact that he planted and managed his vineyards the right way and on the right soil gives him access to a raw material of first quality when the law changes, and if it changes. Semigorie 353900 новороссийск, пос. семигорье ул. усадьба семигорье, д. 2 Novorossiysk - Semigorie Usadba Semigorie ulitsa 2 phone + 7 918 485 09 77 oparine [at] mail [dot] ru semigorie's webpage

Russian mermaid on the beachI shot this improvised long-pose pic of Jennia at night under the moon (8 seconds without tripod, lying on the pebbles). It was on the beach along the black sea near where we were camping. Russia's black-sea coast is quite beautiful and looks some times like the coast of Italy or Provence.
Our unregistred camping near there (a stone throw from the shore) was not only free, it was beautiful. Relaxed, cool evenings (but under warm temperatures) with food cooked on the improvised

fire. We were a group of friends split in 4 tents,

of which 2 were beige soviet-era tents, very basic military-type tents that worked well. It seems that generations of Russian & Soviet campers have spent good time in this free-camping spot under the trees. We had to clean the area first, though, as there was lots of trash, empty bottles and other stuff left over by previous campers (I should be given the Russian honorary citizenship just for all the cleaning I did there with Lena).
These sort of places where you can set up your tent freely kind of slowly disappear in contemporary Russia with the appetite of real estate developpers, but if you look hard, there are still quite a few good spots like that along the Russian coast. Don't be mean with me if I don't give the exact locations of these cool spots... Not only it's cool to set up camp in a place like that so close from the pebbles beach, but you spend on good food and vodka all the money spared on the accommodation. Made us a good number of heartening evenings...
In an other occasion, we camped in a sandy wild spot on the black-sea coast of this part of Russia (still the Kuban region) This was north on Anapa, near some sort of land's end pointing toward Ukraine. Lots of wind but very beautiful setting, with the sea at about 300 meters from our spot (which you can guess in the far at the end of the video). At dusk, we made a fire with small pieces of drafted wood to cook something hot and also keep us warm, as the wind comlbined with the cooler temperature of that particular day made us feel cold. The next day, we moved to another place, and the warm weather settled back over the region. September is hot in this Russian region while further north, inland Russia cools fast.

Edit : Wine tasting at Semigorie with G. Oparin