Russian Agriculture Ministry expects a resumption of growth in domestic wine production next year

MOSCOW. Dec 13 (Interfax) - The Russian Agriculture Ministry expects that next year the production of domestic wines will resume growth after declining this year.

"In the first half of the year, our imports grew strongly, and in connection with this, the production of Russian wines slowed somewhat. But at the same time, we see a significant increase in the production of wine materials and hope that we have a fairly good prospect for restoring growth in the production of our wines," Deputy Minister of Agriculture Marina Afonina said at a press conference on Wednesday in Moscow. The press conference was dedicated to the end of "Russian Wine Year - 2023."

After the increase in duties on wine imports from unfriendly countries in July of this year, shipments from abroad slowed down. "Accordingly, we are hoping for a resumption of growth in the production of Russian wines next year," Afonina said.

The deputy minister also said that this year winegrowers have planted new vineyards on an area of 5,000 hectares. Thus, their total planted area has increased to 103,000 hectares. She confirmed the ministry's earlier forecast that this year's grape harvest would reach 760,000 tonnes. Last year, the harvest was 890,000 tonnes.

According to Rosalkogoltabakcontrol, Russian wineries produced 27.5 million dal of grape wines in January-November of this year, which is 8.9% less than a year ago. For November, the YoY decline was 15.5%, to 2.7 million decaliters. The production of sparkling (champagne) wines over 11 months decreased 11.2% to 12.6 million dal. In November alone, production dropped 26.2% YoY to 1.8 million dal. The production of fortified wines decreased 18.1% over 11 months to 777,900 dal. In November, 93,500 dal were produced, which is 3.7% less than in the previous year.