After all, is it his or isn’t it? Now-in-prison dissident Alexei Navalny previously leaked a video purporting to be exclusive footage of the ‘Putin’s Palace’ near the Black Sea town of Yelenchik, a property amazing luxury. Near the “Palace” is also the estate of the famous Russian winery Abrau Durso. Its owner is Vladimir Putin’s adviser and friend, Boris Titov. Titov’s son has now taken over the management of the estate.

The president of Russia himself categorically denies that he owns the “Palace” in Yelenchik, he insists that it does not belong to him and never did. He has certainly visited the area. In an earlier TV show, speaking to Russian students, he said that “the only thing that interested me from everything I saw there was the production of wine…”

“Only the best…”

According to data from ImportGenius, the world’s largest data bank for export trade, the estate is equipped with the highest quality available on the international market. Barrels and industrial equipment come from the best Italian manufacturers. The bottles are imported from France.
Putin’s favorite wine is considered to be ‘Usadba Divnomorskoe’, a red wine made from Merlot. High-ranking Kremlin guests such as Belarusian President Lukashenko and Chinese President Xi Jinping have the rare privilege of trying it out. The Merlot variety originates from western France, but the grapes in question have been grown for ten years at the Abrau Durso estate, near “Putin’s Palace”, as Navalny claims. The owners of the estate even entrusted the overall supervision to the Italian oenologist Matteo Colletti.

In 2021, Vladimir Putin granted Colletti Russian citizenship. Despite the sanctions, the Italian oenologist remains in Russia, but faces more and more difficulties. For example, it can no longer bottle Usadba Divnomorskoe in the famous Italian Vetri Speciali bottles. “All transactions with Russia have been frozen, we no longer have bottles in Russia, not even in the estate that produces Usadba Divnomorskoe,” a representative of the company based in Trento, northern Italy, told DW.

The lack of cork is also a serious problem. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the owners of the estate boasted on Instagram that they use only “natural cork, of the highest quality, which comes from cork trees at least 52 years old and has not gone through the bleaching process.” Today 70% of the world’s cork production comes from Portugal, while in second place is Spain with a market share of 10%.

As a representative of the Portuguese company Corticeira Amorim, which is considered the leader in the industry, tells DW, “since the start of the war in Ukraine, our company has stopped exports to Russia, as well as any investment activity in the country.”

Bypassing sanctions through Turkey

However, according to ImportGenius data, even after July 2022, when EU sanctions against Russia came into effect, the Abrau Durso estate continued to source top quality corks from Portugal. But not by direct import, but through …Turkey. The Portuguese Amorim Cork SA no longer appears as the sender, but the Turkish company Mepline Lojistik.

For 2023 there are no figures yet. The Abrau Durso estate does not respond to the question of whether EU sanctions are being circumvented. The Portuguese insist they know nothing about cork shipments to Russia.