Wines from Putin's wineries entered in tasting competition in US

Wines from wineries linked to Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, have been entered in a tasting competition in the United States.

Source: The Insider

Details: Entrants in the San Francisco International Wine Competition, the winners of which will be announced on 16 December, include the Divnomorskoye Estate and Krinitsa, two wineries located at Putin's palace near Gelendzhik on the Black Sea coast, as well as the Mezyb Estate (linked to Patriarch Kirill); Winepark (German Gref, CEO of Russia's Sberbank); Derbent Wine (former Russian Railways vice president Salman Babayev); and Myskhako (Krasnodar lawmaker Alexei Sidyukov).

The wines were delivered to the United States by Pavel Mayorov, Deputy Director of the Association of Russian Winegrowers and Winemakers, who is linked to Putin's associate Mikhail Kovalchuk.

The Insider notes that the export of Russian alcoholic products to the US has been banned since 2022.

Mayorov transported the wines in his personal luggage and travelled via third countries. To disguise their origin, the Russian excise stamps on the bottles were covered up with stickers that said "Not for sale" in Hebrew, and bottles of Georgian and Israeli wine were added to the "collection assembled at the request of Californian winemakers".

Background: India and Russia signed an agreement on the joint production of passenger aircraft a few weeks before Putin's official visit to India.

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