New era, new site
After February 24th 2022, when russia started an unprecedented bloody war against Ukraine and especially after the totally disillusioning reaction to the invasion of my wine “friends”, living in the aggressor country, I took a decision to change the purpose of this website. Initially it was meant as a stand-alone website for my wine scribblings that I’ve been writing in russian for the last 20 years, assuming I was bringing culture and civilized attitudes to a new & growing wine market. All in vain. All my efforts disappeared as a soap bubble in a single day. Now the site is “stand alone” in the direct sense of the words: I stand alone, looking for a new identity and new audience. Hopefully I will find both.
My photo on the front page was taken at Vino e Cucina restaurant in the beautiful city of Kiev, the last but one time I visited it in 2018. A wonderful place with exquisite cuisine and an extraordinary wine list, where I presented several wines of a winery on the Black sea cost of Ukraine that I’ve been consulting since 2010 (I am not naming it as until the war goes on the risks are very high). It seems that it’s location is “strategic” not only for growing vines and making wine but for other purposes too as this region has been constantly and heavily bombed since the first day of the war. My colleagues are forced to hide in underground bomb shelters. Instead of discussing blends, bottlings, sales and marketing, we are discussing the ways to supply the territorial defense with empty bottles that they need for some special “welcome cocktails” for the invaders. I could never ever imagine that…
Pray for Ukraine and let’s put all our efforts to stop the war and the bloodshed.
