Eastern European Wineries Suffer As Ukraine War Rages

American businessman John Wurdeman was about to depart for Kyiv, Ukraine, on Feb. 24 to attend the SuperNatural Wine Festival when he was told not to board the plane.

Photo Insert: Wineries in Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Moldova, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe have been thrown into uncertain territory by the war.

“I got a phone call saying Kyiv is being bombed, and not to come,” said Wurdeman, who is the founder of Pheasant’s Tears Winery in Georgia, Rebecca Holland reported for the Washington Post.

Wurderman said he also had a shipment of wine destined for Ukraine’s GoodWine warehouse, which was destroyed on March 4 with about 15 million euros (about $16,200,000) worth of product inside.

Rather than sulk, Ukrainian wine merchants transformed the warehouse into a humanitarian depot. GoodWine’s website said the firm had been “delivering goods from our suppliers from all over the world, preparing and sending ready meals to hospitals, territorial defense, and the Armed Forces.”

In western Ukraine, at Chateau Chizay in Transcarpathia, about three miles from the Hungarian border, the winery’s vice president Ilan Radom said 10,000 refugees were arriving every two hours in the first days of the war.

The chateau housed as many as it could fit and quickly switched its production from making wine to preparing food for refugees and the military.

Around Ukraine, wine bottles are being filled with gasoline, plastic pellets, and other incendiary materials to blast Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers (APCs), infantry fighting vehicles, and artillery. These Molotov cocktails have already transformed tanks into raging infernos.

Wineries in Ukraine, Georgia, Hungary, Moldova, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe have been thrown into uncertain territory, including changing production to housing refugees, bottle supply issues, transportation problems, and rising inflation.

WEEKLY FEATURE : MVP Group Keeps Lights On During Pandemic