Vines line the hills south of Sevastopol. Oleg Repin, a local vintner, surveys the land and recalls his days harvesting grapes as a schoolboy. "Living here, sooner or later you come in touch with wine," he says. One of a handful of boutique Crimean winemakers hoping to revive fine wine on the peninsula, his brand, launched in 2010, now produces a punchy riesling and a subtle pinot noir. When Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, it coveted many things, from strategically located ports to sandy beaches. So too its bounty of grapes. During the Soviet era, central planners used the region to mass-produce wine, often of dubious quality, for the whole Union. After the annexation, among the first assets that the new Russian authorities seized and nationalised were two tsarist-era wineries, Noviy Svet and Massandra. The Russian government has showered its new alcoholic acquisitions with subsidies.
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