9 bottles of exciting Ukrainian wines ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ.

๐Ÿพ๐Ÿ’™๐Ÿ’› Sipping & Supporting Ukrainian Wine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿท

๐Ÿค” Ever tried Ukrainian wine? Probably not, that's why we decided to organise a private tasting. ๐Ÿฅณ It was a success ๐Ÿ˜: unique grapes ๐Ÿ‡, big stories ๐Ÿ’ก & a lot of character. ๐Ÿ’™๐Ÿ’›

When we started UnscrewMe, our focus was on tastings organised by others. However, we also host private tastings ourselves every now and then. Here, we give you some insights into our latest private tasting which was all about Ukrainian wine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ.

If you would like to work with us to organise a tasting with Ukrainian wines ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ or something else ๐Ÿท, please get in touch ๐Ÿ‘‹. Weโ€™re looking forward to hear from you! ๐Ÿ™‚

The Backstory

Detail shot of a Ukrainian flag on a black label on a red wine bottle.

You might wonder, why we were interested in Ukrainian wine in the first place. As with many good wine tastings, it all goes back to a personal story. But not all stories go back over 20 years ๐Ÿ—“. In summer of 2001, I volunteered to go to Mariupol in Ukraine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ with a youth group to support an orphanage working with often drug-addicted street kids for about two weeks. Such a journey was about as far and foreign, as I could imagine at that time. ๐Ÿ˜ณ

For me, it was a big adventure, getting out of my comfort zone and experiencing a completely different world. During these few weeks, I met friendly people ๐Ÿ˜Š and enjoyed a degree of hospitality I have rarely seen before ๐Ÿฅง. I spent a memorable, hot summerโ€™s day by the Azov Sea, playing in the sizzling sun ๐ŸŒ…. I spent a fun afternoon in a traditional sauna ๐Ÿฅต. And I did my best to brighten up the day for a couple of homeless children ๐Ÿ™‚, who unlike me could not go back to a comfortable life in Germany ๐Ÿ‡ฉ๐Ÿ‡ช.

View over the the beach and over the Black Sea in Mariupol, ๐Ÿ“ธ photographed in August 2001.

Ever since that summer, I wanted to go back to Ukraine ๐Ÿ›ซ. This time not to volunteer, but to explore modern life in big cities like Kyiv and Odesa ๐Ÿ™ and get to know the local wine scene, just like I do when I go on a city break to Prague ๐Ÿ‡จ๐Ÿ‡ฟ or Stockholm ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ช. And I wanted to go back to Mariupol to see how it changed.

For about 20 years, this plan was lingering in my head ๐Ÿ’ญ, but it was one of those things that I thought, I could do anytime. Next year, or the year after. Now, I regret that I didnโ€™t go back a couple of years ago, before the full-scale invasion changed everything in 2022 ๐Ÿ’ฅ.

Illustration from Wines of Ukraine website showing a rocket landing in a vineyard.

โ€œUkraine has a great history of winemaking and we hope that we would be able to share our wines with winelovers from all over the world after the war end.
We continue to fight for our freedom and to protect our land, language and identity!โ€

(Quote & illustration from Wines of Ukraine: War)

After learning so much about Ukrainian wine now ๐Ÿ“š and getting to know Ukrainians that love wine as much as I do ๐Ÿค“, I am even more looking forward to go back to Ukraine in the future and see some of the vineyards ๐Ÿ‡ and winemakers ๐Ÿšœ I have discovered through the Ukrainian Wine Company ๐Ÿท.

But now, back to the tasting. Today, almost everyone has heard of Ukraine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ. Unfortunately, not many people know that Ukraine actually produces excellent wine ๐Ÿ˜ฑ. We wanted to help Ukrainian winemakers to change that by showing people another side of Ukraine, full of flavour, experimentation & hope ๐ŸŽ‰.

Fresh delivery of Ukrainian wines for the tasting.

As many of our guests had never tried Ukrainian wine before, we wanted to present different styles ๐Ÿ‡ across various regions ๐Ÿ—บ. We decided to kick things off with something fizzy to get everyone in a festive mood and started the evening with a sparkling wine ๐Ÿพ. Then we featured three whites โšช๏ธ, one orange ๐ŸŸ  and three exciting reds ๐Ÿ”ด. We finished the tasting with something slightly different - a medium-sweet wine with grapefruit flavours, which turned out to be a really fun and refreshing drink to end the evening with ๐Ÿธ.

We wanted our guests to experience unique wines from all over Ukraine, so we picked seven winemakers from Zakarpattia ๐Ÿž, the Black Sea region ๐ŸŒ… including the Mykolaiv & Odesa as well as one winery based near Kyiv ๐Ÿƒ.

Authentic Ukrainian Snacks

Delicious selection of snacks provided by Olga and her team at Mriya Neo Bistro in Old Brompton Road, Kensington & Chelsea, London. ๐Ÿ˜

With our concept โ€œ๐Ÿพ๐Ÿ’™๐Ÿ’› Sipping & Supporting Ukrainian Wine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿทโ€œ, it was important for us to partner with Ukrainian businesses. We were very lucky that we found an excellent location for this tasting in Mriya Neo Bistro on Old Brompton Road in Kensington & Chelsea.

I enjoyed working with Olga, who started her restaurant with a mission to make Ukrainian food more sophisticated ๐Ÿฝ & to give Ukrainian refugees in London a meaningful place to work. ๐Ÿ™Œ Even better for us, she also has a deep passion for Ukrainian wine ๐Ÿพ:

โ€œOh, and those Ukrainian wines no one has ever seemed to have heard of? Theyโ€™re on Mriyaโ€™s menu, sourced from Ukraineโ€™s budding wineries, such as the Beykush Winery from Ukraineโ€™s Black Sea coast.โ€
(Read more about her and her vision in The Kyiv Independent: London restaurant cooks up Ukrainian fine dining)

Together with her chef ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿณ, she curated a range of delicious, authentic Ukrainian snacks to go along with our wine selection. We were happy that our guests liked this Ukrainian wine and food exploration as much as we did. ๐Ÿฅณ Our personal favourite of the snacks was definitely the โ€œsaloโ€, flavourful, thinly sliced salt-cured pork fat on delicious rye bread ๐Ÿฅช.

And if youโ€™re still not convinced, even the famous chef Rick Stein visited Mriya and chatted with Olga as part of his new Food Stories programme ๐Ÿ“บ.

Sourcing Ukrainian Wine in London

Many bottles of Ukrainian wine in a box, ready for the tasting. Some bottles feature the Ukrainian flag at the top. ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ

For many years, at least as far back as 2019, we were thinking about exploring Ukrainian wine. However, without doing much research, we assumed - especially now during the full-scale war - it would be difficult to get Ukrainian wine delivered to London โ›”๏ธ. Luckily, my friend Dilyan from The Jolly Merchants invited me to the excellent Ultimate Central & Eastern Europe Wine Fair (CEE) where I discovered the Ukrainian Wine Company, a UK importer supported by Wines of Ukraine:

โ€œOur main goal is to promote Ukraineโ€™s culture, history and bravery through our wines. We believe that our wines are a reflection of our country, and we want to share this with the world.โ€

After a short chat with wine expert Sera at their stall ๐Ÿ’ฌ, I decided that now is the time to go ahead and introduce people to Ukrainian wine ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ. After all, ordering Ukrainian wine in London is actually as easy, quick & smooth as buying English or French wine! ๐Ÿ“ฆ

Discovering the Diversity of Ukrainian Wines

Ukraine has a very long and mixed winemaking history ๐Ÿ“œ.

We wanted to let people taste some wines made from grape varieties that are only grown in Ukraine ๐Ÿ‘€. But we also wanted to showcase how innovative Ukrainian winemakers approach international grape varieties to create something interesting based on things we already know. ๐Ÿง

Table set up with all the bottles, ready for the tasting to kick off. ๐Ÿฅณ

We started the evening with a fairly unique rosรฉ sparkling wine ๐Ÿพ, Carpathian Sekt Blaufrankisch Brut Rose (2023) from Chateau Chizay (ะจะฐั‚ะพ ะงะธะทะฐะน), a pretty big and popular wine producer based in the Zakarpattia wine region in western Ukraine, bordering Hungary ๐Ÿ‡ญ๐Ÿ‡บ and Slovakia ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ฐ.
As we expected, this one was a true crowdpleaser impressing our guests with its raspberry compote and freshly crushed grapes flavour notes ๐Ÿ˜ with only 11.5% alcohol, made from the lovely Austrian black grape variety Blaufrรคnkisch ๐Ÿ‡ฆ๐Ÿ‡น. Itโ€™s not a grape you will find used in many sparkling wines, but it works beautifully in this light, refreshing Charmant method fizz, produced similar to Proseccco in Italy ๐Ÿ‡ฎ๐Ÿ‡น.

Moving to white wines โšช๏ธ, we presented a fresh, easy drinking Albariรฑo (2022) from Beykush Winery. The vineyards are located on a peninsula right by the Black Sea in the Mykolaiv subregion in the South of Ukraine ๐ŸŒŠ.
We like to think that the sea air adds some salinity and minerality, combining beautifully with typical peach and stone fruit notes ๐Ÿ‘ of Albariรฑo or Alvarinho wines from Spain ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ธ or Portugal ๐Ÿ‡ต๐Ÿ‡น.

Our second white wine was another international variety, this time one originating from France ๐Ÿ‡ซ๐Ÿ‡ท. The floral Muskat Ottonel ๐ŸŒธ (2021) from Frumushika-Nova was liked by many of our guests ๐Ÿ‘. The small winemaker is doing a lot of things beyond wine and has been developing a holiday destination ๐Ÿ›„ around farming in Bessarabia, the most western part of the Odesa region.

Our final white was something truly special, a wine made from a local Ukrainian grape ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ and made by a new, experimental wine producer in the Kyiv region. The white balanced and smooth Sukholimanskiy (2022) from BIOLOGIST Winery (ะบั€ะฐั„ั‚ะพะฒะฐ ะฒะธะฝะพั€ะพะฑะฝั ะฟั–ะด ะšะธั”ะฒะพะผ) was one of my personal favourites.

We continued the tasting with something slightly more edgy and still pretty local ๐ŸŸ . We poured the Orange Blend Slava Ukraine (2022) from BIOLOGIST. It is made from 34% of the Georgian variety Rkatsiteli ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ช, blended with Traminer and Silvaner. It is quite tame for an orange wine, we mainly selected it because it shows a Ukrainian take on Rkatsiteli. The wine label has a special story, because the winemaker showed true creativity by using blue and yellow tape ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ for the initial batch. Not because they liked tape so much, but because that was the only material they had at this very difficult time during the war.

Three bottles of Ukrainian red wine featured at the tasting from Stakhovsky Wines, Villa TINTA and Kolonist. ๐Ÿคฉ

We swiftly moved on to some red big hitters ๐Ÿ”ด, starting with the Saperavi Ace (2021) from Stakhovsky Wines, another winemaker located in the western Zakarpattia region.
Celebrity wines is a popular concept around the world, and this wine producer was started by a famous former Ukrainian #1 tennis player ๐Ÿฅ‡, Sergiy Stakhovsky, who has once beaten Roger Federer at Wimbledon ๐ŸŽพ.

Detail shot of the label of the Saperavi Ace from Stakhovsky Winesfeaturing a tennis player in action. ๐ŸŽพ

The wine is made from the Georgian Saperavi grape variety ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ช, one of only a few grapes that actually produce red juice, giving the wine a deep colour.

NY Times article screenshot with a photo of Sergiy Stakhovsky in army uniform and title "Ukrainian Tennis Stars Swap Rackest for Rifles in Fight For Their Country" However, this story takes an unexpected turn โšก๏ธ, because since 2022, Sergiy Stakhovsky serves in the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend his country ๐Ÿช–:
Sports Illustrated, 02 Feb 2024: Sergiy Stakhovskyโ€™s Turn to Serve

This is the kind of story we came across a couple of times while preparing this wine tasting ๐Ÿ˜Ÿ. Many ordinary people in the wine industry started doing extraordinary things to serve their country and keep their businesses going ๐Ÿ˜ฒ. I personally think that the least we can do is to enjoy their wines, recognise their hard work & spread the word ๐Ÿ“ข to support this exciting wine region ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ.

(๐Ÿ“ท Photo from Facebook: The New York Times, 18 March 2022: Ukrainian Tennis Stars Swap Rackest for Rifles in Fight For Their Country)


Focusing yet again on a local Ukrainian grape ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ฆ after the Saperavi Ace, we then tasted two wines made only a couple of kilometres apart on the shores of Lake Yalpug in the Danube Bessarabia subregion at the south-western border of Ukraine close to Moldova ๐Ÿ‡ฒ๐Ÿ‡ฉ and Romania ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡ด. Both wines are made from the Ukrainian grape variety Odesa Black ๐Ÿ‡, the first was the Odesa Black VIP Wine Selection (2019) from ะขะœ Villa TINTA (ะ›ะพะบะฐะปัŒะฝั– ะฒะธะฝะฐ ัƒะบั€ะฐั—ะฝััŒะบะพั— ะ‘ะตััะฐั€ะฐะฑั–ั—) and the second was Odesa Black (2022) from Kolonist (Family Winery ยซะšะพะปะพะฝั–ัั‚ยป). Both showed a beautiful blend of bold flavours, smooth tannins and some oak notes.

Goetz wrapping up our UnscrewMe wine tasting experience. ๐Ÿค“ We finished the tasting with a surprise bottle, a semi-sweet wine drink ๐Ÿฏ. Produced by Chateau Chizay, the Pinot Noir Rose with Grapefruit (NV) was a fun and refreshing sensation. For us, this tasted more like a cocktail, than a wine, clearly dominated by grapefruit notes but with a certain elegance and structure added in the background, thanks to strawberry ๐Ÿ“ and cherry notes ๐Ÿ’ from the Pinot Noir base wine.

We were very lucky that throughout the evening, wine expert Sera from the Ukrainian Wine Company joined us. ๐ŸŽ‰ Being from Ukraine, she could provide some helpful in-depth knowledge and experience about the country and even show impressions from the ongoing wine harvest at some of the producers we tasted. ๐Ÿ‘


Having someone at a tasting with a personal connection to the wines and the people behind the bottles always adds another dimension, helping everyone appreciate the wines even more. ๐Ÿคฉ

Impression from after the tasting, judging from the empty bottles, the event must have been a roaring success! ๐Ÿ˜†


If this sounds like fun and inspiring experience ๐Ÿพ, please get in touch ๐Ÿ‘‹.
We are more than happy to organise a tasting for you & with you. ๐Ÿ“‘
We provide expert guidance on themes, topics, wines & venues. ๐Ÿ’ก


Please Share!




First published in October 2024.