Russia: Industry organization

With large production centres in the cities, sparkling wine is important to Russians and comprises an increasing proportion of wine consumption. In 2012, the Russians consumed 805 million l/213 million gal of still wine and 301 million l of sparkling wine, with official figures estimating that 65% of the market is domestically made wines and 35% is imported wines. The term ‘domestically made’ includes only 40 to 45% of wines made from Russian-grown grapes, the rest being based on imports of grape concentrate and bulk wine bottled in Russia. Another peculiarity of the Russian wine market is that medium-sweet wines, of all colours, represent up to 60% of sales, although this proportion is slowly declining.