On October 28, 2024, Moscow's historic Metropol Hotel became the stage for a celebration tinged with concern. The announcement of the latest Top100wines.ru rankings showcased the remarkable quality achievements of Russian winemaking, with winning wines subjected to round-robin tastings and various master classes throughout the day.
Yet beneath the accolades and the clinking of glasses, a roundtable discussion titled "Russian Winemaking: The Choice of a New Generation of Consumers and the Challenges of the Era" revealed an industry standing at a critical juncture—one where exceptional quality growth collides with sobering economic realities.
From Skepticism to Success: Five Years of Remarkable Growth
When Top100wines.ru launched five years ago, the project faced considerable skepticism. "Would we ever get to a hundred worthy Russian wines?" recalled Igor Serdyuk, head of the Top100wines.ru project, reflecting on those early doubts. "With some hesitation, we answered: 'Yes, probably.'" Today, that hesitation has been replaced by confidence born from tangible results. The project now easily reaches a full hundred wines across its three main categories: white, red, and sparkling wines.
The numbers tell a compelling story of rapid maturation. Andrey Grigoryev, the project's co-founder, highlighted the dramatic expansion: "In 2021, 307 wines from 60 wineries passed through the rating's panel tastings, and this year, 725!" This more than doubling of entries in just three years reflects not only increased production but also growing confidence among Russian winemakers that their products can compete at high quality standards.
The quality threshold itself has become more selective. To be included in the top 100, wines must now score at least 91 points on a 100-point scale during blind tastings—a standard equivalent to gold medals in many international competitions. "This year, we were forced to raise the passing score by one," Serdyuk explained, noting that several wines achieved scores as high as 95 points. The need to raise standards because too many wines were meeting them represents a quality problem most emerging wine regions would envy.
The Rating's Expanding Challenge
Success has created its own dilemmas for the organizers. Currently, Top100wines.ru limits each producer to four entries, a quota that Serdyuk suggests may be "holding back our growth." The question now facing the rating: should it expand from one hundred wines per category to three hundred? "As the rating organizers, we're at a crossroads," Serdyuk acknowledged.
This expansion would significantly complicate the already challenging work of the tasting panels, but it would also provide Russian consumers with a more complete picture of their domestic wine market. The dilemma reflects a fundamental success: Russian winemaking has outgrown the frameworks initially designed to showcase and evaluate it.
Anatoly Korneev, co-founder and vice president of Simple Group, provided context for this growth within the broader market: "There are 25,000 SKUs of bottled imported and Russian wine in circulation in the Russian Federation. There are only 6,500 labels of Russian wine." Yet despite representing a smaller portion of overall variety, quality Russian wines are carving out an increasingly significant space. "If you take the quality segment, that's (and will be) 10%," Korneev noted.
Warning Signs on the Horizon
The roundtable's tone shifted from celebration to concern as industry leaders confronted the economic headwinds facing Russian winemaking. Despite—or perhaps because of—the quality achievements, participants warned of an impending crisis that could stall the sector's momentum.
"We are at a turning point," Andrey Grigoryev stated bluntly. Russian wine has captured over 60% of the domestic market according to various estimates, and both wine production and vineyard acreage continue to increase. However, Grigoryev posed the critical question: "It's unclear how long it will take to increase the hectares by at least 50 percent."
The development of Russian winemaking is occurring "against a rather negative overall economic backdrop," Grigoryev continued. The draft budget includes reductions in the already modest subsidies for establishing new vineyards—a critical investment for an industry where vines take years to mature and produce quality grapes. "Tax pressure continues—this includes increases in excise taxes and VAT," he added.
Anatoly Korneev echoed these concerns with stark numbers: "We're currently experiencing a turning point and a cooling off due to political, economic, and social conditions. Funds, budgets, and subsidies are being cut. How can we develop without them? We'll definitely be seeing a 38% increase in excise tax starting next year and a 2% increase in VAT."
The severity of the situation prompted Korneev to issue an alarming assessment: "I assess the state of the industry as critical." He placed Russian winemaking's economic footprint in sobering perspective: "Russian winemaking accounts for 0.15% of the country's GDP. Our industry is invisible, while in France it accounts for 2% of GDP, and if you include all related industries, from tourism to gastronomy, you get 5%."
Igor Serdyuk summarized the gathering anxiety: "We are concerned that we may be witnessing the beginning of stagnation in Russian winemaking." He identified multiple factors constraining growth: relatively low purchasing power among consumers, price imbalances within alcohol market categories, and "the persistent marginality of wine as a category" in Russian drinking culture.
The Price Paradox
One hope had been that increased customs duties on imported wines would make Russian wines more competitive on price. However, market data has dispelled this notion. A study by Luding covering the first half of 2025 revealed that both foreign and Russian sparkling wines experienced nearly identical price increases—28% and 29% respectively, accurate to within 1%.
"Prices are rising on everything," Grigoryev observed. More concerning, "This is happening against a backdrop of declining consumer spending." The combination of rising prices and reduced purchasing power creates a squeeze that threatens to push wine—whether domestic or imported—beyond the reach of many Russian consumers.
Shifting Consumption Patterns
Despite the challenges, Alexander Stavtsev, project manager for WineRetail, attempted to inject measured optimism by highlighting fundamental shifts in Russian drinking culture. He challenged common perceptions: "Russia is commonly referred to as a 'vodka country.' However, this is untrue."
The reality, according to Stavtsev's data, tells a different story: "70% of everything consumed in the Russian Federation is beer. Wine and sparkling wines account for 8.5% of the market. That's more than vodka." This represents a significant cultural shift. "A couple of years ago, wine surpassed vodka in terms of liters consumed," Stavtsev noted, pointing to a positive trend since 2018 when the market began recovering from the 2015 economic crisis.
However, even Stavtsev acknowledged worrying signs: "Wine consumption peaked in 2023, and in 2024, we reached a plateau. Now the market is slowly plateauing." The growth trajectory that had buoyed the industry through recent years appears to have stalled.
The roundtable identified poor communication throughout the sales chain and with end customers as a significant factor in the potential market stagnation. This suggests that beyond economic pressures, the industry faces challenges in how it connects with and educates consumers.
The Human Touch: Building Wine Culture Through Experience
Against these systemic challenges, individual producers are taking matters into their own hands by creating direct, emotional connections with consumers. Marianna Klassova, co-owner of the Satera winery, described her approach: "We always work with our customers in an immersive show mode: we invite them to vineyards, hold tastings and master classes, and train restaurant staff. We want people to enter the world of wine through a beautiful, emotional story."
This experiential approach recognizes that wine consumption is about more than just the liquid in the bottle—it's about culture, knowledge, and emotional connection. By bringing consumers into the vineyards, demystifying the winemaking process, and training service staff to communicate effectively about wine, producers like Klassova are building the cultural infrastructure necessary for long-term market development.
Alexander Stavtsev acknowledged the crucial role these efforts have played: "Wine retailers, HoReCa, and professional communities have made a huge contribution to the market's development—those who have gradually gained expertise and communicated it, preparing our customers." The reference to HoReCa (Hotels, Restaurants, and Cafés) highlights how the hospitality sector has served as an educational gateway, introducing consumers to wine in professional settings where knowledgeable staff can guide their choices and enhance their appreciation.
A Coordinate System for Growth
The creation of Top100wines.ru itself represents part of this educational and cultural infrastructure. "The lack of a clear coordinate system for both consumers and producers was one of the reasons for creating the rating," Andrey Grigoryev explained. In an emerging wine market, such reference points serve multiple purposes: they help consumers navigate choices, provide producers with benchmarks for quality, and establish the credibility of domestic wines in a market historically dominated by imports.
The rating functions as more than just a quality competition—it's a tool for market development, consumer education, and industry validation. By establishing transparent, rigorous standards and applying them consistently through blind tastings, Top100wines.ru creates a framework that both challenges producers to improve and assures consumers that highly-rated domestic wines merit their confidence and investment.
Looking Forward: Optimism Amid Uncertainty
Despite the sobering discussion of economic headwinds, tax increases, subsidy cuts, and plateauing consumption, the roundtable concluded on a note of determined optimism. Igor Serdyuk, while acknowledging the challenges, expressed confidence in the industry's trajectory: "I think we will overcome the pseudo-stagnation and lead our wine country to a new stage of development."
The use of "pseudo-stagnation" is revealing—it suggests that current plateaus may be temporary pauses rather than permanent ceilings, and that the fundamental drivers of growth remain intact even if temporarily constrained. The quality improvements documented by the rating, the cultural shifts in consumption patterns, and the passionate engagement of producers and intermediaries all point to an industry with strong foundations, even if the economic environment currently limits its growth potential.
The Russian wine industry's story, as revealed at the Metropol Hotel roundtable, is one of remarkable achievement shadowed by genuine concern. In just five years, Russian winemaking has evolved from a sector struggling to produce one hundred worthy wines to one where the challenge is deciding which of 725 quality wines to feature. Producers are crafting wines that score 95 points in blind tastings, and wine has surpassed vodka in consumption volume—achievements that would have seemed implausible a decade ago.
Yet these quality victories occur against a backdrop of economic pressure that threatens to constrain future growth: rising taxes, reduced subsidies, increasing prices, and declining consumer spending power. The industry has captured market share and elevated quality, but it now faces the challenge of sustaining momentum when the economic winds have shifted direction.
The path forward, as articulated by the roundtable participants, lies in continued education, emotional engagement, and building the cultural infrastructure that transforms wine from a marginalized category into an integral part of Russian food and beverage culture. Whether this approach can overcome economic headwinds remains to be seen, but the gathering at the Metropol made clear that Russian winemaking, despite its challenges, has no intention of retreating from the quality standards it has worked so hard to achieve.
Source: Kommersant