Luxury wines are popular with the Russian upper class, and Putin has close ties to the producers. Research shows how Putin’s winegrowers are apparently avoiding sanctions.
Moscow – For Russian millionaires and billionaires spoiled for luxury, good wine is essential. Also President Wladimir Putin is a great lover of fine wines. His luxury villa, known as “Putin’s Palace”, which the Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny made known with an investigative video in early 2021, is located in a picturesque landscape on the Black Sea, where numerous wineries have opened in recent years. A research of Deutsche Welle (DW) reveals how Russia’s luxury wine industry is dodging Western sanctions to continue sourcing luxury products to make their wines.
Producer of Russian luxury wines closely associated with Purin
The Russian head of state wants nothing to do with “Putin’s palace”. He seems to know the area well. Next door is the neighboring estate of Abrau Durso, a famous Russian wine merchant whom Putin was deeply impressed with in a January 2021 TV show. “Out of everything I saw there, I was only interested in one thing – winemaking,” he said, according to the DW at that time. The producers of Russian luxury wines can be sure of Putin’s protection if they are not already on friendly terms with him.
The main shareholder of Abrau Durso is the DW according to Boris Titov, a friend and adviser of Putin and also the ombudsman for Russian business. Putin’s favorite wine, Usadba Divnomorskoe, which is served to state guests like Xi Jinping, is grown on estates owned by a subsidiary of Abrau Durso. In 2019 it was bought by Gennady Timchenko, an oligarch from Putin’s inner circle. The son of one of Putin’s childhood friends is said to have been involved in the deal.
Sanctions hit Putin’s winegrowers particularly hard
Russian wine patrons like Boris Titov charge a lot for the production of their luxury wines. Only top European products are used, such as barrels and designer bottles from France and Italy or corks from Portugal. Customs data and Instagram posts would prove that, reports the DW.
Putin’s favorite wine, Usadba Divnomorskoe, is served at receptions in Italian designer bottles from the Vetri Speciali brand. The manufacturer boasts on Instagram that they cork these bottles “only with the best corks from leading suppliers”. This can only mean fine natural cork from Portugal, which accounts for 70 percent of global cork production. Customs data would prove that Usadba Divnomorskoe Winery uses cork stoppers from Corticeira Amorim, the world’s leading producer of cork oak products
Best barrels from France, best bottles from Italy, best corks from Portugal. In short, all the leading suppliers for the production of premium wine are in the EU. But she has tough sanctions against Russiato get Putin to end the Ukraine War to move. This particularly affects Putin’s winegrowers, who are dependent on European products. Companies like Vetri Speciali and Corticeira Amorim no longer work with Russian business partners, and fines of up to 10,000 euros are threatened
Are Russian winemakers evading sanctions via Turkey?
At the request of DW Vetri Speciali confirms that “all economic and monetary transactions with Russia have been suspended”. “We no longer deliver our products Russia, not even to the Russian winery ‘Usadba Divnomorskoe’,” DW quoted from their reply. Corticeira Amorim made a similar statement. “We have informed our former customers in Russia that we no longer want to supply them because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the company said DW.
The reason for the request to the Portuguese cork manufacturer: Customs data would show that Abrau Durso continued to import corks from Corticeira Amorim from July 2022. At that point, the EU embargo against Russia came into effect, and importing was illegal from then on. That’s why the Portuguese corks became over the Türkiye imported to Russia. This emerges from the customs documents that the Turkish logistics company Mepline Lojistik would identify as the sender of the customs declaration. Previously, Amorim Cork SA was the sender.
Customs data for 2023 is not yet available. DW has not received any responses from Abrau Durso to its inquiries about whether sanctions over Turkey are still being circumvented. It was not possible to contact Usadba Divnomorskoe due to missing information on their website. Among other things, the journalists want to know how the “Kremlin winegrowers” intend to deal with the sanctions in the long term. Corticeira Amorim, on the other hand, assured that he knew nothing about deliveries to Russia via Turkey. Additional tests will be considered to reduce the risk of circumventing EU sanctions DW the Portuguese company.
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