๐พ๐๐ Sipping & Supporting Ukrainian Wine ๐บ๐ฆ๐ท
๐ค Ever tried Ukrainian wine? Probably not, that's why we decided to organise a private tasting. ๐ฅณ It was a success ๐: unique grapes ๐, big stories ๐ก & a lot of character. ๐๐
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 ๐บ๐ฆ.
If you would like to work with us to organise a tasting with Ukrainian wines ๐บ๐ฆ or something else ๐ท, please get in touch ๐. Weโre looking forward to hear from you! ๐
The Backstory
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 ๐. In summer of 2001, I volunteered to go to Mariupol in Ukraine ๐บ๐ฆ 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. ๐ณ
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 ๐ and enjoyed a degree of hospitality I have rarely seen before ๐ฅง. I spent a memorable, hot summerโs day by the Azov Sea, playing in the sizzling sun ๐ . I spent a fun afternoon in a traditional sauna ๐ฅต. And I did my best to brighten up the day for a couple of homeless children ๐, who unlike me could not go back to a comfortable life in Germany ๐ฉ๐ช.
Ever since that summer, I wanted to go back to Ukraine ๐ซ. This time not to volunteer, but to explore modern life in big cities like Kyiv and Odesa ๐ and get to know the local wine scene, just like I do when I go on a city break to Prague ๐จ๐ฟ or Stockholm ๐ธ๐ช. And I wanted to go back to Mariupol to see how it changed.
For about 20 years, this plan was lingering in my head ๐ญ, 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 didnโt go back a couple of years ago, before the full-scale invasion changed everything in 2022 ๐ฅ.
โUkraine 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 ๐ and getting to know Ukrainians that love wine as much as I do ๐ค, I am even more looking forward to go back to Ukraine in the future and see some of the vineyards ๐ and winemakers ๐ I have discovered through the Ukrainian Wine Company ๐ท.
But now, back to the tasting. Today, almost everyone has heard of Ukraine ๐บ๐ฆ. Unfortunately, not many people know that Ukraine actually produces excellent wine ๐ฑ. We wanted to help Ukrainian winemakers to change that by showing people another side of Ukraine, full of flavour, experimentation & hope ๐.
As many of our guests had never tried Ukrainian wine before, we wanted to present different styles ๐ across various regions ๐บ. We decided to kick things off with something fizzy to get everyone in a festive mood and started the evening with a sparkling wine ๐พ. Then we featured three whites โช๏ธ, one orange ๐ and three exciting reds ๐ด. 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 ๐ธ.
We wanted our guests to experience unique wines from all over Ukraine, so we picked seven winemakers from Zakarpattia ๐, the Black Sea region ๐ including the Mykolaiv & Odesa as well as one winery based near Kyiv ๐.
Authentic Ukrainian Snacks
With our concept โ๐พ๐๐ Sipping & Supporting Ukrainian Wine ๐บ๐ฆ๐ทโ, 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 ๐ฝ & to give Ukrainian refugees in London a meaningful place to work. ๐ Even better for us, she also has a deep passion for Ukrainian wine ๐พ:
โOh, and those Ukrainian wines no one has ever seemed to have heard of? Theyโre on Mriyaโs menu, sourced from Ukraineโs budding wineries, such as the Beykush Winery from Ukraineโs 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 ๐ฉโ๐ณ, 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. ๐ฅณ Our personal favourite of the snacks was definitely the โsaloโ, flavourful, thinly sliced salt-cured pork fat on delicious rye bread ๐ฅช.
And if youโre still not convinced, even the famous chef Rick Stein visited Mriya and chatted with Olga as part of his new Food Stories programme ๐บ.
Sourcing Ukrainian Wine in London
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:
โOur main goal is to promote Ukraineโs 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 ๐ฌ, I decided that now is the time to go ahead and introduce people to Ukrainian wine ๐บ๐ฆ. After all, ordering Ukrainian wine in London is actually as easy, quick & smooth as buying English or French wine! ๐ฆ
Discovering the Diversity of Ukrainian Wines
Ukraine has a very long and mixed winemaking history ๐.
We wanted to let people taste some wines made from grape varieties that are only grown in Ukraine ๐. But we also wanted to showcase how innovative Ukrainian winemakers approach international grape varieties to create something interesting based on things we already know. ๐ง
We started the evening with a fairly unique rosรฉ sparkling wine ๐พ,
Carpathian Sekt Blaufrankisch Brut Rose (2023)
from Chateau Chizay (ะจะฐัะพ ะงะธะทะฐะน),
a pretty big and popular wine producer based in the Zakarpattia wine region
in western Ukraine, bordering Hungary ๐ญ๐บ and Slovakia ๐ธ๐ฐ.
As we expected, this one was a true crowdpleaser impressing our guests
with its raspberry compote and freshly crushed grapes flavour notes ๐ with
only 11.5% alcohol,
made from the lovely Austrian black grape variety Blaufrรคnkisch ๐ฆ๐น.
Itโs 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 ๐ฎ๐น.
Moving to white wines โช๏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 ๐.
We like to think that the sea air adds some salinity and minerality,
combining beautifully with typical peach and stone fruit notes ๐ of Albariรฑo
or Alvarinho wines from Spain ๐ช๐ธ or Portugal ๐ต๐น.
Our second white wine was another international variety, this time one originating from France ๐ซ๐ท. The floral Muskat Ottonel ๐ธ (2021) from Frumushika-Nova was liked by many of our guests ๐. The small winemaker is doing a lot of things beyond wine and has been developing a holiday destination ๐ 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 ๐บ๐ฆ and made by a new, experimental wine producer in the Kyiv region. The white balanced and smooth Sukholimanskiy (2022) from BIOLOGIST Winery (ะบัะฐััะพะฒะฐ ะฒะธะฝะพัะพะฑะฝั ะฟัะด ะะธัะฒะพะผ) was one of my personal favourites.
We continued the tasting with something slightly more edgy and still pretty local ๐ . We poured the Orange Blend Slava Ukraine (2022) from BIOLOGIST. It is made from 34% of the Georgian variety Rkatsiteli ๐ฌ๐ช, 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 ๐บ๐ฆ 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.
We swiftly moved on to some red big hitters ๐ด, 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 ๐ฅ, Sergiy Stakhovsky,
who has once beaten Roger Federer at Wimbledon ๐พ.
The wine is made from the Georgian Saperavi grape variety ๐ฌ๐ช, one of only a few grapes that actually produce red juice, giving the wine a deep colour.
However, this story takes an unexpected turn โก๏ธ, because since 2022,
Sergiy Stakhovsky serves in the Ukrainian Armed Forces to defend his country ๐ช:
Sports Illustrated, 02 Feb 2024: Sergiy Stakhovskyโs Turn to Serve
This is the kind of story we came across a couple of times while preparing this wine tasting ๐. Many ordinary people in the wine industry started doing extraordinary things to serve their country and keep their businesses going ๐ฒ. I personally think that the least we can do is to enjoy their wines, recognise their hard work & spread the word ๐ข to support this exciting wine region ๐บ๐ฆ.
(๐ท 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 ๐บ๐ฆ 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 ๐ฒ๐ฉ and Romania ๐ท๐ด. Both wines are made from the Ukrainian grape variety Odesa Black ๐, the first was the Odesa Black VIP Wine Selection (2019) from ะขะ Villa TINTA (ะะพะบะฐะปัะฝั ะฒะธะฝะฐ ัะบัะฐัะฝััะบะพั ะะตััะฐัะฐะฑัั) and the second was Odesa Black (2022) from Kolonist (Family Winery ยซะะพะปะพะฝัััยป). Both showed a beautiful blend of bold flavours, smooth tannins and some oak notes.
We finished the tasting with a surprise bottle, a semi-sweet wine drink ๐ฏ. 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 ๐ and cherry notes ๐ from the Pinot Noir base wine.
We were very lucky that throughout the evening, wine expert Sera from the Ukrainian Wine Company joined us. ๐ 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. ๐
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. ๐คฉ
If this sounds like fun and inspiring experience ๐พ, please get in touch ๐.
We are more than happy to organise a tasting for you & with you. ๐
We provide expert guidance on themes, topics, wines & venues. ๐ก
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First published in October 2024.