491: Ukraine, Wine and Terror

[00:00:00] My family was in Kiev when the war started. My husband didn't really believe that it's possible. He said, look, that's something that's not going to happen. Never ever can you imagine the beginning of the 21st century. It's impossible. And I was not that optimistic at that time

[00:00:21] because all people, and me included, we received special documents from the schools our children were going to. And we received special instructions on how to find your child when the war starts. Because the moment the bombs are falling, the telephones don't work. The city is blocked with traffic.

[00:00:42] Everybody's in panic. You can't just get into the car, drive to school and take your child. The moment the bombs are starting to fall, all the children are officially taken to the bomb shelters downstairs somewhere. And it's impossible to find your child there.

[00:01:00] Me as a parent and me as a mom, we were receiving special instructions what to do if the war starts in the middle of the day. It was a week before the war actually. And that's why I really thought that something would happen, something bad would happen.

[00:01:19] But we never left. We stayed in Kiev, like all the Ukrainians. We went to bed on the 23rd. And it was, I think, the middle of the week. Tomorrow we are going to work, tomorrow we are going to school. Everything like every day.

[00:01:33] And we live, by the way, in the heart of the capital, in the city next to the parliament. And we woke up at 4.30, I'd say, because our telephone started ringing and everybody was shouting, the war has started. And we didn't understand what we mean.

[00:01:48] And then we heard the bombs. And we saw the fire where the bombs were falling. And we understood that the war began. I got prepared before, I must say. I collected the documents, the passports, the birth certificates, some diplomas, like all the documents for some property we have,

[00:02:12] like all the documents that I considered to be quite important to have with me when we leave the country. And I collected, I gathered, like in one little bag some kind of jewelry or something. When you have this panic attack for the first time in your life,

[00:02:28] you don't understand what to do. You don't understand how to wake up your children at 4am who are still sleeping and explain them what is going on because they are too small to understand. When we came to a more or less safety place

[00:02:43] in several days after this day, and I opened the suitcases, it was ridiculous what I had in those. It was like different socks, some kind of old pyjamas, some books, the things that I don't really need at all.

[00:02:56] But it's impossible to take some things that you really need. You don't think about it. You don't think about anything, just to save your children, to save your family, friends and everyone. We have our mom living with us in the same city, like in Kyiv,

[00:03:16] but she lives in the opposite bank of the river. You know, Kyiv is located on a huge river which is Dnipro. The bridges were blocked and we couldn't take her. So our driver, my husband's driver, is a very brave, courageous man.

[00:03:32] He went there and he spent up to 8 hours to bring my mom to our family. And then we went to our country house. We have a small cottage next to Kyiv. We spent there one night, but unfortunately the explosion started around the village

[00:03:51] because it's not far from some kind of a military base or something. I never knew about that. And we heard the explosions, we saw the furniture jumping in our house, we saw the glasses trembling, we saw and heard these military jets.

[00:04:21] It's like airplanes that are flying so fast and so loud that you can't hear your thoughts. And it was all over the place and it was all the time day and night. And we spent only one night, the children couldn't sleep, they were crying.

[00:04:35] And we have two big dogs, like very big dogs. And they were barking all the time, like they were so scared. So we decided to leave Kyiv region and the next day we left everything. We have some animals living with us, like we have chicken, we have rabbits,

[00:04:56] we have dogs. We left all the animals, we couldn't take them with us. The dogs were hungry for three days because there was no one in the village, everybody left. And then we found some man, who was our neighbor, and he started to put some old food

[00:05:12] under the gate for the dogs to survive. Now they're okay, now the dogs are okay. But these are our family, we had to leave members of our family. So we were trying to leave, there are three roads from our village, two of them were already destroyed,

[00:05:29] we couldn't leave. So we took another road and it was blocked with traffic. We were trying to go around through the villages or fields, I couldn't even imagine that it's possible to drive, we have a big car but still, it's like driving in February through the villages,

[00:05:46] it was awful, it was madness. So we did it, we got to Odessa. Odessa from Kyiv is like 460 kilometers, but we got there, I remember, like in two hours. My husband was driving so fast because we were scared that we would meet some Russian troops or someone.

[00:06:08] I'm Levi Dalton and this is All Drink to That, where we get behind the scenes of the wine business. Ukraine has at least one of every kind of winery. There is a natural wine producer, there is a biodynamic producer, there is a winery working with clay amphora

[00:06:41] and there is a winery owned by a tennis star. There is a producer making a Timoraso and one that focuses on grape varieties specific to Ukraine. There is also at least one winery that is disguising its location on Google Maps for fear the winery will be robbed

[00:06:59] or destroyed, which is a legitimate fear. Ukraine has experienced tremendous turmoil, loss of property and life, as well as a resurgent wine scene that has never in the last 100 years produced more quality wines than it is making right now. And I say that even as some Ukrainian wineries

[00:07:18] are literally being wiped off the face of the earth. Paradoxically, the quality wine resurgence in Ukraine can be attributed to warfare. The annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 prompted Ukrainians to look for new markets outside of Russia, which had previously consumed over 80% of Ukrainian wine production.

[00:07:41] It also prompted Ukrainians to consume more of their own wines domestically and to make better wines in hopes of opening new markets. To give you a sense of the kind of contrast Ukraine contains, over 100 new restaurants opened in just Kiev alone in 2022,

[00:07:58] while at the same time Russia began an attempt to take over the entire country in February of the same year. Ukraine has made tremendous growth in its wine sector, but the recent warfare has also led winemaking families into exile and turned wineries that were designed

[00:08:16] for tourists into shelters for refugees. Here is Alla Plachkova, who spoke earlier, describing such a transition. Alla and her husband co-founded a boutique winery in the early 2000s near Odessa. We actually decided to go to our winery first because we decided to open the winery

[00:08:36] for all the refugees and to open all our houses and everything that we had to the refugees. So we left the keys to our neighbors who decided to stay. We bought a lot of food, we bought some medicine, a lot of water. We organized like warm clothes

[00:08:51] and everything for people because we understood that a lot of people would go to the borders and our winery is just at the border to Romania. It's like 50 kilometers. So in order to go there, you have to cross two big rivers and there are only three bridges

[00:09:08] and if they are exploded or destroyed, there is no way out. No way out, you just have to stay and pray. And it feels like we just jumped into the last carriage of the train because when we crossed this river, behind us I saw the tanks,

[00:09:24] they already blocked the bridge and that's what Ukrainian soldiers did because they were destroying the roads for Russians not to come. We were driving through the fires. I remember a lot of villages started to make a lot of fires around the villages on the fields

[00:09:45] so the Russians would think that the bombs have already been there so they don't have to bomb these areas, to shell these areas because of the fires. And we got there. Somehow it was really scary. If you want me to describe

[00:10:06] what a person feels when panic attacks happen, I had it once in my life and it's like no one needs it. And I don't want anyone to feel it. It's like when you are very thirsty, it's ridiculous but when you are so scared

[00:10:27] and panic attack the first symptom is you can't breathe because you need to drink. You are so thirsty, you can drink water but it doesn't help and sometimes you really don't understand what you are doing. You can put some stuff somewhere,

[00:10:40] you forgot about it like the next moment and it's not good because we have children. We had to stay calm. We went to the winery. We opened the winery for the refugees. We announced it in the media and we told everyone you can go here,

[00:10:58] you can have a shower, you can eat, you can sleep, you can stay, you can live in our house as long as you wish. In some houses that we have, people are still living. Like in my mom's house, people are still living in Ukraine for over a year.

[00:11:17] And in our country house in the village next to the winery, I think over 100 families lived when they were crossing the border. They came to the house, they were exhausted, they were dirty, they were in blood. Their cars were with this like holes

[00:11:37] because of the gun, you know. People were shooting at them. Some of them were injured, some of them need hospitals. A lot of people who came, they were old with little children. Some were taking a lot of animals with them like cats, dogs and everyone.

[00:11:56] Mostly there were women with children. They were coming to our house and staying for a night or two just to come to pull themselves together. I would say it was more or less not that dangerous in our village because it's very remote from the capital

[00:12:15] and from the places where the invasion started. And then they left. The colonist winery refers to a situation where Bulgarian immigrants into the Ukraine were known as colonists with a K. And your husband's family was from Bulgaria. Yeah. In Ukraine, in this part of our country

[00:12:43] which is southern western part, we have a lot of people living there with different nationalities. I would say up to 100 nationalities. Most of them are colonists. Colonists are people who are settlers who were forced to leave their houses, to leave their homes many years ago

[00:13:06] and to find a new home. Speaking about Bulgarian colonists, these people came on these lands 200 years ago. They were forced and suppressed by Ottoman Empire, by Turkish regime and they didn't want to change their religion, they didn't want to change their traditions.

[00:13:26] They wanted to preserve everything that they had. That's why they had to leave. And our village in particular was forced to leave their homes. And our village in particular was founded in 1813. So over 200 years ago they came here and they stayed.

[00:13:45] And Bulgarians have a very strong community in Ukraine. And your husband whose family has these Bulgarian origins, he was also in the Ukrainian government. He was born in this village in the Bulgarian community. He received his education in Ukraine. It was Soviet Union, yeah, Soviet Union.

[00:14:10] He started working in energy sphere and then he became a minister of fuel and energy in three governments. It was long time ago, it was like 2000s, I'd say like 1999 up to 2006. And so he is one of the biggest energy experts and professionals in this sphere.

[00:14:34] He still is involved in this sphere, giving consultations. Then he was the chief of the region administration which is the governor of Odessa region. So he was in charge of Odessa region and this region and this territory was highly depressed at those times. We didn't have good roads,

[00:14:58] we didn't have a lot of tourists, no investments. Like this part of Ukraine is so remote. It's like the end of Ukraine, it's the border to Romania and a lot of people didn't go there at all. They didn't even know what we have there.

[00:15:14] And he was trying to develop this region to attract attention, to tell the world that we have fantastic civilization here. And that's why he decided to build a winery there. Winemaking is something that Bulgarians have been doing for a lot of centuries.

[00:15:40] So all Bulgarian people are winemakers in their heart, they produce wine at home. And so his father did, his grandfather did, like everyone in his family. And he decided to build a winery and he was thinking where to build a winery, whether it's the capital or Odessa city,

[00:16:00] which is the capital of this region, the biggest city in Odessa region or in the village. And they decided to do it in the village just to attract a lot of people. And then year by year, step by step, after several years, everything changed

[00:16:21] and a lot of people showed huge interest in wines. A huge interest in wines attracts a lot of people to the anus sphere of Ukraine, like anotourism. And we see that every year before the pandemic times, before COVID, before the war,

[00:16:40] our winery welcomed up to 3,000 people a year only from Ukraine. So about 20 years ago, your husband broke ground on a winery that's near a freshwater lake. Yeah, it's huge. You can drive one hour along the lake and he decided to build a winery. He didn't inherit it.

[00:17:01] He didn't rebuild. He didn't buy like some old winery or something. He decided to create the new project from scratch, like from blank. And it was hard at those times. A person has to be crazy, like in a good way. One of the things your husband really did

[00:17:22] was that he brought attention to a grape variety called Odessa Black, which was a crossing of Alicante Boucher and Cabernet Sauvignon. And he put a lot of effort into making a good one. He was the first one who believed in this grape variety

[00:17:37] as the independent unity, you know, like as the thing that you can associate Ukraine with. A lot of people thought that Odessa Black, as Alicante Boucher, well, that's one of the parents of this grape, this wine is not enough to be varietal.

[00:17:56] This wine should be used only to make your bulk wine better. It was put inside the bulk wine of two other varieties to make them stronger, to make them more color and so on. But he was the first one who said,

[00:18:11] But he was the first one who said, no, we don't have indigenous grapes. We don't have the history like Italy does or other countries in Europe. We have to find something that will make the history of Ukraine on the wine map.

[00:18:25] We need to come with something out to the world. We go to a lot of international wine trades and wine fairs and we need to find something that would be decent but local. Local, that's what attracts a lot of people. Everybody knows what Cabernet is.

[00:18:45] Everybody has tried Chardonnay all over the world. Now the high interest and the biggest interest in locals. Because if you imagine you have a blind tasting somewhere all over the world and you have different wines and dark glasses, if you have Odessa Black there,

[00:19:04] you'll definitely recognize that's Ukraine. Because this wine definitely has got its own identity. So you can find it on the wine tasting and you can say that's Ukraine. It's strong, it's exaggerated, it's full-bodied, it's rich in everything like color. We call it black. No wonder why it's black.

[00:19:23] It's like black blood of grapes. Color, taste, aroma, everything is so rich, so full-bodied. Like Ukraine is. And he decided to do it. He had a team at those times, it was not that big as now. And he came to the laboratory and said,

[00:19:46] look guys, we are starting to do Odessa Black. And they started. It was very difficult because this grape variety is a little bit, I'd say, wild. It's like a wild animal. You have to work really hard to tame it.

[00:20:06] We were trying to do all possible stuff with this grape variety to make a very good wine. It was hot at the beginning, the vineyards were young and we were trying to find some kind of approach to this wine

[00:20:21] to make it really elegant, to make it really nice, fine wine. It took us several years. We were like fighting with this wine, who is the main one in this fight? But we found what we had to do.

[00:20:36] We decided first, we decided to be very grateful to this grape variety to really think it is a very good wine. If you don't believe in what you're doing, the wine would be not good. You have to believe that what you are doing is great. And we did.

[00:20:59] We did it. And now we have what we have. How have things changed since, say, 2014 and the invasion of Crimea? Well, I think my family, like nobody else, knows what it means because my family owns a house in Crimea. And this house also was built by my family.

[00:21:21] And it was our paradise place where we spent every summer. But unfortunately, we haven't been there since 2014. We never crossed the border. Crimea is a wonderful place, one of the most beautiful places in the world. And after it was occupied, a lot of winemakers who have been there,

[00:21:47] they tried to relocate their facilities and everything, which I can't even imagine how to do it. It's practically impossible. Some of them who decided to stay, they had to do something to survive. They still are producing something, but they are forced to do it under the Russian control.

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[00:23:59] Sergey Klimov is the author of The Untold Story of Wine in Ukraine. In 2014, occupation of Crimea, I understand that market in Ukraine have some interesting wineries that nobody knows, you know, that don't sell, but it's like something small, something craft.

[00:24:22] And in those time I realized that it could be my mission because in those time nobody believe in Ukrainian wine. So for me it was like, you know, a challenge. And I accepted because I like to show the world something interesting about Ukraine.

[00:24:38] In 2016, I opened a wine bar. In one time we have three bars in Kiev, in the center. It was a revolution actually because before this bar, nobody believed that Ukrainian wines can be competitive to, I don't know, Italy, French wines, etc.

[00:24:55] But in Lake Lagos, we sell only Ukrainian wines and Ukrainian products. And it was like, you know, like boom in the head of the market, of the restaurants, of the retailers, distributors. So yeah, it was like a very big step for Ukrainian wines.

[00:25:14] Also, a couple months ago I finished a book about Ukrainian wines. It's Untold Story of Ukrainian Wines. The thing I would emphasize there is that you've done quite a few things there in under nine years because the invasion of Crimea was in 2014.

[00:25:33] And that's when you started to begin to think about, you know, there was a changing wine industry and you were interested in learning more about it yourself, but then sharing that with people. About Ukrainian wines before occupied of Crimea, before 2014.

[00:25:48] We have like, you know, we produce a lot of cheap wine. And one of the main markets where we sell it, it was Russia. It was at least like 75 or 80% of wines. It was super cheap wine, like bulk wine.

[00:26:02] It was like fluor from USSR, you know, post-USSR things. Because in USSR they don't think about quality, they think about quantity. And when Crimea was occupied, we cut all negotiations with Russia, and the winemakers who sell wines to Russia realized that we need to change something, you know.

[00:26:25] And they begin to move in other direction. They begin to think, okay, how we can find the way, how we can introduce Ukrainian wines in the world. And in those time came out some new wineries, like small wineries, craft wineries that produce 10, 15, 20 thousand bottles.

[00:26:44] You know, it's like very small one. And also they begin to do it in some different regions, not just South Ukraine where is very warm climate, but in Western part of Ukraine, and in like North of Ukraine, in Kiev region.

[00:27:01] There's been an explosion of growth of small wineries, both licensed and unlicensed in the country. Yeah, yeah, but we have a lot of problems with laws, because we have post-USSR laws that don't change from like 30 years.

[00:27:17] For example, there's a state body that has to certify wines for them to be sold in supermarkets. Something I learned from you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's go back. That's the current situation which is rapidly evolved in 10 years. But let's go back a couple thousand years.

[00:27:34] There have been some archaeological finds in Ukraine that have to do with wine. About 2,800 years ago, we have archaeological facts that winemaking was in Ukraine. And also it was time of ancient Greeks. And ancient Greeks, those civilizations who bring a lot of culture of winemaking here in Ukraine.

[00:27:57] A lot of different clay culture, you know, the amphoras. After Roman Empire, it was like very dark times for this territory. The second big wave of winemaking in Ukraine was between 9 and 11 centuries. It was Kyrgyz and it was monks. They make wines.

[00:28:21] After Kyrgyz, the biggest high level of winemaking was from 17 to 19 centuries. And it was northern part of Ukraine, it was Podillia. So all of the territories of Ukraine make wines in those times. And after that, in 1922, after First World War, after revolution in Russia, everything began to change.

[00:28:49] Ukraine tried to get independence again and it was failed. And till 1991, we were occupied by USSR. When USSR came, they changed absolutely the type of wine business, you know, because there are no businessmen in USSR. In USSR was only monopoly of government for everything that you did.

[00:29:16] They think about quantity of wines and don't think about quantity of wine. It was a bad time actually, because in those times we lost our culture, you know. And we lost a lot of territories that historically was winemaking territories. For example, Kiev region, for example, Podillia central region,

[00:29:38] West region, Halychyna. And they make wines only on the south of Ukraine and they try to make as big as they can. It was time of super cheap and semi-sweet fortified wines. So, for example, in 1980s USSR produced 70% of fortified wines,

[00:30:03] 25% of desert wines and only 5% of dry wines. And it was a big influence to what we have now, because everybody in Ukraine, in Russia, in Ukraine, everybody in Ukraine, you know, they don't remember what is good wines. They didn't know because of 80 years of USSR.

[00:30:26] Things started to change in early 2000s. And there was some foundational wineries at that time that really got certain regions going in terms of the winemaking. Sometimes they had foreign help, you know, consultants and so forth. And then there was a decisive event in 2014 where Russia invaded Crimea.

[00:30:47] Crimea was a place where there was a winemaking institute, like it was a place where people had learned how to make wine, one of two in the country and there was also a lot of vineyards there.

[00:30:57] This action created a severance between the Ukraine and Russia in terms of the market. So, the Ukrainian wines were no longer sold in Russia and the idea of what the consumer wanted changed quite a bit because the Russian consumers wanted one thing,

[00:31:14] but Western Europe, which became the market, wanted something else. And those two things were not the same. And so this propelled things more in the line of premiumization, more quality wines, right? Yeah. We begin to discover new regions, new grape varieties, experiment with different technologies.

[00:31:33] We begin to search new ways, you know, and it was Western Europe, it was US market because we sell also on US market in those times, but very small quantity. Ukraine, you know, it's a fairly large country in terms of landmass

[00:31:50] and there's multiple regions like in many countries where wine is made. A lot of the wine is made in the southern part of the Ukraine in what's thought of as kind of the Black Sea area, around the area of the Black Sea. But there's other regions as well.

[00:32:04] So how would you, for someone who's never visited, how would you sketch out the major wine regions of the Ukraine? So, the major wine regions now is Black Sea region. There are three big cities around it. It's Odessa region, like Odessa, Mykolaiv and Kherson.

[00:32:24] Odessa region is super warm. In some way it's a desert with volcanic soils. This is a land of red wines. A little bit norther in Odessa region, there are a lot of sparkling wines and they produce also white and red wines.

[00:32:43] The same as Kherson region and Mykolaiv region, they produce both white and red ones. But for my opinion, the most interesting white wines is from central Ukraine. It's Podillia, because there are a lot of limestone. Also we have Transcarpathia or Transcarpathia.

[00:33:05] It's a region where we can make a lot of white wines and some types like very light Merlot or Pinot Noir, Blau-Frankisch. And in northern part of Ukraine it's like Kiev region and Chernigiv region. It's a region more for white wines, sparkling wines and more for rose wines.

[00:33:30] So what we've seen recently in Ukraine is an explosion of wineries. Actually it would be hard to know how many there are because several of them are not licensed. We don't have statistics actually for the quantity of winemakers in Ukraine. The correct statistic, because of the war.

[00:33:48] But before war we have officially 70 wineries. At least 24-25 from them was small wineries, craft wineries. Also in these 70 wineries it's at least 25, it's a very big producer that produce also bulk wines. So in this case you'd be talking about wineries that control hundreds of hectares.

[00:34:14] Something else that's changed a lot is just the tech. The winemaking equipment that's going into some of the wineries has upgraded quite a bit, right? Because under the Soviet era there was really kind of two wineries. There was the primary and secondary wineries

[00:34:29] and one of those didn't really finish wine. The wines were finished in the Soviet Union. When the USSR is no longer involved now you have wineries finishing their own wines. They're not just making liquid, they're putting wine into a bottle

[00:34:44] and they've upgraded a lot of their equipment to do so. Also we have different productions, oak barrels, we have tanks, we have clay amphoras. So what I've seen and what you're alluding to is a diversity of wine styles and there's also a diversity of grape varieties,

[00:35:01] some of which are crossings that were made in Ukraine, like for example by the wine school in Odessa. Some of them are indigenous, like autochtone varieties that was like a thousand years ago in these lands. Some of them are selected in institutes.

[00:35:19] As you mentioned before, we have two institutes. In Odessa it's the Institute of Tayirova and in Crimea it's the Institute of Magarach. And at the same time one might encounter from Ukraine a Merlot or a Cabernet Sauvignon, a Tempranillo or maybe a Timoraso even, a Riesling, a Chardonnay.

[00:35:38] There's a pretty wide variety of both grape material and then also styles in the different wineries. Yes, yes, we have a lot of international varieties. In addition to writing about the wines and researching about Ukrainian wine history, you've also sold the wines.

[00:35:53] What would you tell people to have them purchase this wine and why would you recommend one versus another? First of all, nobody thinks that Ukraine is a winemaking country. So when you hear about that we have wines, okay, you said, okay, let's go, I want to try.

[00:36:10] When people try it, you know, they said, wow, I'm shocked. It's good, it's interesting and it's a story behind it. And in different wineries it's different stories. For example, now a couple of historical wineries are destroyed because of Russian militaries.

[00:36:30] For example, in Bakhmut now it's the hottest point on the map in Ukraine. In terms of warfare. There's a lot going on and they close the winery. And the art winery is located there. It's totally destroyed. Part of Bakhmut is occupied and they located on this part.

[00:36:47] Before war, they produced 18 million sparkling bottles. Also we have Prince Trubetskoy winery. It's located in Kherson region. They established in 1889. So it's like more than 100 years of this winery. And it's also was destroyed and they have in storage 50,000 different bottles from like 100 and more years.

[00:37:11] And it was stolen everything. No wine collection anymore. I don't know of another place where in the wine world there's such a huge amount of quality development and winemaking expansion and change quickly alongside so much strife and destruction. It's unusual. And as we've spoken about in certain times

[00:37:39] that strife has actually propelled the quality forward for the wines. You have this situation where there's incredible destruction, loss of life, people are running wineries in exile like they don't live there anymore because they can't. And they fear for their safety.

[00:37:57] Their families have been moved out of the country. They fear every day someone they know is going to die. And yet at the same time, you know, you taste through the wines and you're like wow these wines are a lot better than they would have been 15 years ago.

[00:38:08] This is the amazing part about this place from my outsider view. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Why we move so fast? Because we want to get our place in the world map. Because USSR stolen our lives from our people, from our nation.

[00:38:28] And now we want it back. After the break, we'll speak with an entrepreneur about her experience starting a wine business in Ukraine from scratch and then starting over again. And again. You're unusually composed and like emotionally together for the situation that you're in, I would think.

[00:38:48] Because if I were to trade places with you, I think I would be devastated. That's after this. Would you like to hear more new episodes of All Drink To That? Consider making a gift donation to support the program. You can donate from anywhere by making use of

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[00:39:56] I was in charge of a wine business when international investors, they have been entering Ukrainian business. And they needed a person that would be supervising the corporate transformation of that Ukrainian business into international style like business with multi shareholders building the relations between them.

[00:40:17] And it happened to be the wine business. So I've accepted that offer. I have become one of the board members of the holding company. And I was in charge of building the corporate structure for the business to be.

[00:40:31] The idea is that I have started to do wine business as the CEO for a big company. It was an international group of companies doing wine business in the commercial wine segment. So that's in 2012 that this happened. And the invasion of Crimea happened in 2014.

[00:40:51] So I would imagine that that would be an event of some significance in your line of work. Absolutely, because apart from the challenges which anyone can expect facing an issue like that, but it was really a know-how and a challenge for a lawyer

[00:41:08] because you happen to face a problem which you don't know how you can solve because there are no instruments that can help you with that. You have a lot of limitations. What were some of the immediate problems that came up when that happened?

[00:41:24] Well, as you know, when Crimea has been annexed by the Russian Federation, there have been quite a lot of restrictions and sanctions imposed by the USA and the European Union. And since the business which I was involved in as a board member involved both American investors

[00:41:44] and investors from EU, we had to make sure that we comply with all of the restrictions that have been imposed. And this reminds me of a task when you have to walk under the rain but you can't get wet. And you are walking between those little drops

[00:42:05] because the business was situated in Crimea and initially all of the production was first of all supporting the mainland Ukraine sales. So it was internal markets that were generating the most of the turnover. And Russian markets, of course, were the number one neighboring markets

[00:42:24] with a huge capacity of developing on that market for any of the business. And it turned out to be the market that absorbed the production and the assets and that business could no longer supply anything onto the mainland Ukraine. But the thing that saved the business

[00:42:47] was that the company never had 100% of its supplies from its own vineyards. And luckily, the other 50%, they have been supplied from the partnering wine growers from the mainland. And when we had to start from the scratch on the mainland, we had already the partners

[00:43:09] that have been priorly supplying us with the grapes. It sounds like these are some lessons that you applied into your own business later because you work with growers, you buy grapes and you use a rented wine facility. Yes, it is so.

[00:43:24] And I say that to make a perfect wine, as good as perfect can be, you don't really need to have the ownership certificate to either the land plot or a passport or technical documents onto the machinery that you are using.

[00:43:39] You have to have ability to use the best the market can offer. And I understand that there are plenty of perfect wine growers in Ukraine that need to have someone as a client to supply their grapes to.

[00:43:55] And I'm one of them who is buying this grape off them. And that partnership is a win-win situation for both. I don't wait for the grape to grow for five years. I don't invest into something that I cannot get payback immediately.

[00:44:13] And I also support those who have done that already. You have to be as flexible as possible. And you have to make sure that you are structuring your business thinking about the potential risks. We've started the business in 2020 when we launched it to the market.

[00:44:33] This was the COVID year. In 2021, it continued. And you know what happens the next year. So you're saying the first year you started to sell wine was in 2020? Yes. And obviously there was COVID and then there was the Russian invasion of Ukraine in general. Exactly.

[00:44:53] Do you feel like as a Ukrainian winery that you have something to prove? Are you trying to produce wines that are kind of in a reaction to something else? You just pinpoint the idea that we had. For a very long time, Ukrainian wines

[00:45:12] haven't been known to the world because it was, even for the Ukrainians, sort of a little bit ashamed to drink Ukrainian wines. From Ukrainian grape varieties and then made in Ukrainian wineries. It was fashionable to consume whatever but it had to come from other countries but Ukraine.

[00:45:33] The reason for that, of course, was because the wine consumption and the level of the knowledge about the wine itself was on a rather low level. For example, in Ukraine the promotion of wines is forbidden by the law. No commercials can be made.

[00:45:52] No festivals used to be in Ukraine. That's why people didn't have access to information and they didn't have access to have a possibility to try something, for example. That's why Ukrainian wine didn't have the image of something fashionable and good.

[00:46:11] You probably changed your business plan when COVID hit. So take me through that kind of experience for you. What were your feelings at that time? I very well remember those times because we have been thinking a lot. Imagine if you have aged wine from 2016.

[00:46:28] You do have quite some time to think about how you enter the market. And we knew from day one that it has to be very effective in terms of the show and in terms of the money when we enter. So we had to create a great launch

[00:46:46] of the company to the market and we have done that. We've really succeeded. We've been everywhere. People were talking about us. The media was also around us. We've made a really good start of the brand. It was made on the 02.02.2020, 2nd of February.

[00:47:08] And of course at that day we already knew that we will have partners in different distributors and we will have contracts that were just about to be signed. And we were ready. So on the 02.02.2020, everything was perfect, nice party, a lot of compliments

[00:47:30] and then in just three weeks as we already started to sign the first contract, COVID hit. People are scared. They don't go to work. They are afraid to do the delivery to the shops because this is a contact person to person. People stop buying wine and the distributors,

[00:47:50] they become quiet and they suspend new launches for some time. They stick to the portfolio they have. They even shorter it. And the whole business model gets collapsed. You can't get the money out. You can't sell. You are busted. So we had to think quick

[00:48:11] what do we do because we already had liabilities before our contractors and we already had to start paying off what we have invested into the production. So we've gathered together. We did the brainstorming and we've realized that we have to absolutely quickly launch the eShop and electronic commerce

[00:48:35] has to become a saver for us. And it worked. We've launched the eShop. We started selling. We continued the promotion. We were talking to consumers via all possible means of electronic devices from Instagram, from Facebook, from anything. Social media was really helping back in those days.

[00:49:00] I even remember how we've been doing the wine tastings via Skype. That made us stronger and we didn't have a plan for e-commerce but then it ended up to be a constant line in the cash flow. That's a quick change though.

[00:49:17] A few times now you've had to make major business plan changes and really adjust your model. I mean, everyone did with the pandemic but I feel like this has happened in successive waves for you where you've had to say well that wasn't quite what we had planned

[00:49:33] but now we're going to approach it like this. But I have to admit that I enjoy it. I understand that it's difficult. I understand that it's challenging. But I also like the emotion that you get. You have your brains to use it. And if you face the problem

[00:49:48] you definitely have a way out but you have to think about it. Probably you will not choose the easiest option or the best option but that's your experience and next time you hit the wall and face the problem you will have that experience

[00:50:04] and it will become a little bit easier in the future. You're unusually composed and emotionally together for the situation that you're in I would think. Because if I were to trade places with you I think I would be devastated. We live only once

[00:50:22] and that's the life that we get. And if it happens so that we are for some reason facing the difficulties and challenges well you can't really skip them you have to fight them and that's why it makes perfect sense to continue your life and do it daily.

[00:50:40] It sounds like you've always kind of picked the harder way to go and that maybe also influenced your decision to get involved with the law because it's not the easiest thing to become a lawyer. It isn't. Well there are little number of families in Ukraine that can say

[00:50:59] that they have been initially rich. I was born in 1982 so I was born in the USSR but I then travelled to Europe then I returned to the new Ukraine into the new reality and I did my business already when Ukraine was trying to promote itself

[00:51:19] as the country doing that European style of business trying to transform. So I've had quite a lot of examples before me showing how people fight the difficulties, how they adapt, how they transform. So what was your feeling as Ukraine sort of moved in certain elections

[00:51:41] more towards the West? What did you think about that change? I always wanted Ukraine to be part of the EU and I want the best for my country. In the lead up to the invasion by Russia into Kiev and into Ukraine in general there was rumors

[00:52:01] and the United States government sort of publicized classified information and said this is likely to happen this troop build up in Belarus is going to mean an invasion of Ukraine and as these things are getting on to TV and into newspapers what were your feelings at the time?

[00:52:19] I didn't believe that it will break out. I really didn't believe it. I knew that well if the rumors are going on then something might have happened but I could never imagine that the actual shooting or bombing or anything that is violent will break out between

[00:52:39] the two countries. I never considered Russia to be the enemy. I was brought up in the way that Russia are neighbors, we are friends, we are brothers, sisters, you know it's very friendly like relationship and that's why when those rumors were going on

[00:53:01] I knew that it's my personal opinion and well I don't believe it for example but I have to make sure that the employees who are under my subordination they have their own opinion and they have to be ready in case of something you know to act

[00:53:21] and that's why the two or three weeks before the breakout of the war we had daily meetings of all of the personnel just to check to change the place of living to move out somewhere does anyone need any assistance and I was calling for the employees

[00:53:41] to have that little suitcase packed just in case I remember we've been buying medicine just in case we've been collecting the telephones of the relatives of the employees also just in case and then when everything happened it was five o'clock in the morning as my husband

[00:54:05] he woke me up saying that honey the war has begun we have to pack and we have to run our elder daughter she is living in the other apartment from us and I remember calling her saying that you have to pack immediately and come to our place

[00:54:25] we are waiting for you but we had no plan and we honestly didn't think that it would be possible and I imagine a number of things have changed I can't even imagine just how many but everything from what situation the growers are in what prices, what things cost

[00:54:49] how glass is going to come who's gonna rack the wines how are the bottles gonna get to market who's gonna put them into a bottle that kind of thing I would imagine a lot of changes and those kind of issues that were in the news

[00:55:05] and that made quite a lot of turbulence in the business some of the people just disappeared for some time and then they came back but the others they continued demanding regular supplies despite of whatever was happening on the market and you had to adjust to all those realities

[00:55:29] and adjust your operational processes to meet what you were and it's important that first of all we don't disappear from the market so we try to make sure that as many contractors as we have as many suppliers as we have we continue to be partners with them

[00:55:49] that's why we've retained quite a lot of the sales even during the beginning of the war time second thing that has happened is that the suppliers have changed absolutely the approach of the commercial side and everybody who is a supplier of whatever either a ready made wine

[00:56:19] or a cork for the wine for example they were scared to have stock and to have money in time they wanted to receive the money now and that whole concept turned the market from head to toe and the other way around and this is really business breaking thing

[00:56:45] in terms of the cash flow the processes the supply chain everything do you have an opinion of mr. Zelensky and has that opinion changed over time I'm not a strong person the only thing that I have changed in my mindset about him

[00:57:09] that he is a hell of a lot of strong person because the issues that he is fighting now I'm not sure that I know any other person that could do it the way he does I'm proud of him what's the best case scenario that you see speaking

[00:57:33] for your wine group that you shouldn't be guessing you never know what's gonna come the best case scenario of course is to be able not only to continue the business that's task number one but also to develop the business which is task number two

[00:57:55] but now the very important thing is that we have to survive over the time of the war and that's the main object that I have I left my kids in Bulgaria where I temporarily live and I went to Ukraine just to visit the house

[00:58:31] I miss it very much and to breathe a little bit of Ukrainian air so I went there and I saw that the house is a mess like there is literally a hole in the wall but I don't care I literally don't care because that's not a problem

[00:58:53] at all all the problems that we had before the war are not the problems they were like happiness so after more than a year of living abroad with my children I do understand that most of all in my life I want to come back

[00:59:15] and I want to rebuild my country and that's what Ukrainians will do like I have never been so proud to have a Ukrainian passport and we'll come back and we'll rebuild our country Do you anticipate a 2023 harvest for your winery? Yeah, yeah, we never stopped

[00:59:37] Our winery was working every single day I'm so proud of our team I left with my children My husband took us abroad and then he came back all the time he stays in Ukraine You can't leave wine business nature doesn't wait we have the vineyards

[00:59:57] we have to treat every day we have the wines maturing in the cellars, in the winery in the vineyards bombs were falling and they were going to the vineyards because they need to make wines We are going to do everything possible to continue working

[01:00:15] You know everyone is fighting with the weapons they have this is our weapon against Russia that's what we have we will fight for our country in this way everything that I can do if I'm not there at all I will fight here We are not the ones

[01:00:35] that you can invade or kill or tell us what to do we are independent and we are proud to be Ukrainians and we'll fight for our rights Alla Pelytchova began a winery 20 years ago with her husband and she hasn't stopped since then That's I-L-L DrinkToThatPod.com

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[01:01:47] in your favorite podcast app please that's super important to see every episode and thank you for listening This episode was brought to you by ProWine, the world's number one wine fair held each year in Dusseldorf, Germany and in other cities around the globe

[01:02:20] American people do a lot of things to Ukrainian wines and I want to thank you That Ukraine has a national stand on ProWine it also helped by USAID so I want to thank you for American people and I hope that