Ukraine: Prince Trubetskoi Winery
On to Kherson Oblast in southern Ukraine… Here you can stay at winery/boutique hotel that is one of the oldest and grandest historic wine-making places on the territory of present-day Ukraine. Prince Trubetskoy was a Russian nobility that bought and owned a large tract of mostly sandy and useless land on the right bank of Dnieper River near the delta and before it entered the Black Sea. The land was inhospitable and Prince Trubetskoy built stables here and started producing race horses for profit in 1890s. Then he married Princess Alexandra Obolenskaya, the daughter of Prince Galitsin, who was the father of the Russian imperial wine industry and all the famous at the time high-quality Crimean wines. Prince Galitsin suggested trying planting vine on Trubetskoy estate, but the latter refused. Then one day Prince Trubetskoy went to Moscow on an extended business, while Galitsin came to visit his daughter and ordered a large tract of unused land planted with vines. Several years later, locally-made Riesling won grand-prix in France and Trubetskoy quickly got rid of horses and started producing wines. During the Soviet times, Trubetskoy estate was a major wine-production center in the former USSR, and today it’s a smaller scale privately owned winery. You can experience fantastic wine tasting here and go check out wine cellars where 10-30-50 year old wines are still preserved, including several bottles from 1910s! A definite must-do experience in Ukraine.
