Wines from Putin's wineries take part in tasting competition in US

Wines from wineries linked to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill took part in a tasting competition in the United States.

Source: The Insider

Details: Among the participants in the San Francisco International Wine Competition, whose winners are to be announced on 16 December, were two wineries located at Putin's palace, Usadba Divnomorskoye and Kolodets; as well as Usadba Mezyb belonging to Russian Patriarch Kirill; Winepark, owned by Russia's Sberbank head German Gref; Derbent Wine owned by former Russian Railways vice president Salman Babaev; and Myskhako, owned by Krasnodar deputy Aleksei 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 publication notes that the export of Russian alcoholic products to the US has been banned since 2022.

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

Background: India and Russia signed an agreement on joint production of passenger aircraft a few weeks before the visit of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.

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