Wine making

Traditions of wine making in Crimea were started by ancient Greeks. In the 6th century BC a large winery prospered in the vicinity of present day Sevastopol. Today the best natural vines of the plant ‘Inkerman' are maintained by the thickness of local rocks, for example, the dry white wine « Kokour Kachinsky ». This wine only grows in Crimea.

Crimean champagne is well known in Europe. Its cradle is the winery " Noviy Svet ", situated to the west of Sudak, whose founder was a prince, L.S.Golitsyn. There is a museum of wine making in the town of Noviy Svet, which also has halls for wine tasting.

Sevastopol combine «Zolotaya Balka» to produce red and white sparkling wines. Champagne of the Sevastopol winery "Izumrud" in Jankoi is less well known.

The desert wines like "Massandra", are of special pride in the Crimean wine making industry. Many of them have been specially created for Russian tsars or the aristocracy, and are now maintained in the very same ancient cellars. Nine wineries of the southern and south eastern coast form part of the cooperative "Massandra", they have tasting halls and are situated in Yalta, Massandra, Gurzuf, Alupka, Alushta, Solnechnogorskoe, Morskoe, Veseloe, Sudak, and Simferopol.

Inexpensive dry wines, and also champagne are manufactured by the "Fountain" (Bakhchisarai) winery. "Dionis" (from Simferopol) is proud of its desert wines, and the factory "Koktebel" (Koktebel is a town to the west of Feodosiya), has unique desert wines and cognacs. Wines made from original Crimean types of grape (such as ‘The Black Doctor'), are produced at winery “ Solnechnaya Dolina ” (Sunny Valley), which is to the east of Sudak.

Traditional Russian vodka and Ukrainian ‘gorilka' are made at the “Souz-Viktan” factory. The same institution has a network of shops selling a large variety of alcoholic drinks. Some factories also produced medical balms like apple spirit, made from mountain grasses.