Wine tasting, anyone?

With the winter swiftly approaching and Kyiv getting less cozy day after day, even a weekend getaway to normally sunnier, warmer Crimea has less appeal than usual. The chilly winds sweeping the peninsula this time of the year are likely to prevent travelers from spending too much time outside – until they stop to consider the option of tasting Crimean wine deep inside the earth.

A visit to the wine cellars located in the grandiose caves of Inkerman, a small town some 20 kilometers northeast of Sevastopol, will keep travelers safely out of reach of the elements and immerse them in a world like no other.

Entering deep inside the limestone caves, the total area of which is 55,000 sq. m., is an experience in itself. Upon entering visitors find themselves breathing warm and moist air that smells very old. As a winery employee will explain, the smell comes from the black noble mold that covers the cave ceilings, giving them, dug out back in the 1960s, an almost centuries-old look and feel.

The mold, as it turns out, is there because of evaporated wine, and which at the same time purifies the air inside the caves, preventing disastrous wine infections that could ruin entire vintages.

Once inside the caves, which are reached through a myriad series of doors – each one tightly shut to prevent any changes in the caves’ microclimate – visitors will gape in amazement inside the galleries: for as far as the eye can see enormously large oak barrels, each of which can contain up to 20,000 liters of wine, stand side by side. Up to 18 million liters of wine can mature in the caves simultaneously.

The Heart of Inkerman

It’s possible to literally spend hours walking between the innumerable rows of barrels, all made before the mid-1980s. Each of them has a label attached to it, showing the type of wine – Crimean Sauvignon, Kacha Bay Cabernet, Old Crimea Bastardo – the year the grapes were gathered, and when the barrel was filled. It’s nothing short of the wine’s passport!

It doesn’t take long to feel excited at the prospect of the wine tasting to come, but first another gallery: it’s impossible to resist finding out what goes on around every turn. Some barrels are actually smaller, and the lucky will have a chance to peer inside one of these in order to see how the wine is doing. A look inside the barrel reveals the bubbly surface of the wine – winery employees say a close listen will demonstrate it is, in fact, breathing. They also explain that, until the wine is bottled, it is literally a living thing.

Valentyna Voroniuk, who is in charge of producing table wines at Inkerman, confesses that when winemakers go on vacation they usually cannot resist popping in to check how this or that wine is doing; as each of them has what they call their “pets.”

She adds that 2005 has been an extremely good year for winemakers in Ukraine in terms of the quality of the grapes. “You can trust me – Ukrainian wines from 2005 will make it onto everyone’s ‘must have’ list.”

The Tasting Rite

No longer in the caves, visitors are brought to a large day-lit room with several tables where glasses, jars of water and plates with peanuts have been set in front of everybody. Flamenco music softly plays from hidden loudspeakers. The palate has to be cleansed after trying each sort of wine, and the peanuts help to neutralize any aftertaste.

The leader of the wine tasting announces each variety of wine, giving them somewhat extraneous, even poetic descriptions. One variety will taste like a girl’s kiss we hear; another will be the same color as the eyes of a partridge, and yet another variety will give tasters a hope for “better times.”

Soon after the wine testing, some of the poetic descriptions almost began to make some amount of sense; a bit more time passed and it was easy to forget to cleanse your palate. After sampling the 8 or so sorts of wine, starting from a dry white through to sweet and syrupy dessert wines, visitors walk outside and they no longer feel that chilly Crimean wind. The “better times” have already arrived.

Extra Stuff

Inkerman holds three daily wine-tasting tours (in Russian, English, Polish and Ukrainian): at 10 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. A tour typically lasts up to two hours and costs from Hr 40 to Hr 75 per person (depending on the number of sorts tasted and the kind of wine received as a souvenir). Minimum group size for a tour is six people. Children must be 12 to be admitted.

For more information call: (0692) 72-2359, 72-2282, (050) 393-7582, or e-mail: market@inkerman.ua.

Getting There:

Take the Kyiv-Sevastopol train, which leaves at 8:21 p.m. and arrives in Sevastopol at 12:56 p.m. A first-class round-trip ticket in a sleeper car costs Hr 500 ($100). Once in Sevastopol, take a bus to Inkerman. The Inkerman winery is located within a five-minute walk from the bus station. The 25-minute ride costs just Hr 3 ($0.60). Alternately, take a taxi to Inkerman for around Hr 30 ($6).

Where To Stay:

Visitors are recommended to find accommodations in Sevastopol, rather than local accommodations in Inkerman, which are of inferior quality.

Nikita Hotel

Tel.: (0692) 54-9066/30,

8-050-398-1770.

This private hotel has five twin-bed rooms. A one-room “half”-suite with cable TV, air conditioning and refrigerator costs $80; a two-room suite with fireplace, leather furniture and minibar costs $120. Breakfast is free for all guests.

Olymp Hotel

www.olymphotel.com

Tel.: (0692) 45-5758, 55-9320;

E-mail: olymp@inbox.ru.

This simple hotel has 15 rooms. One room “half”-suite with cable TV, refrigerator, air conditioning and personal safe costs Hr 530 ($106); a two-room luxury suite with the same amenities costs Hr 689 ($138). Breakfast and parking is included for all hotel guests.

by Vlad Lavrov, Kyiv Post Staff Writer