OREANDA-NEWS. June 22, 2011. On the basis of the largest Russian champagne producer, the sparkling wine plant in Saint Petersburg, a terminal for accepting Moldovan wine raw stuff has been opened, the Russian newspaper Izvestia [news] said, according to which the terminal can accept up to 20-30 million liters of wines per year.

Among the participants of the terminal opening ceremony was Deputy Premier, Minister of Economy of Moldova Valeriu Lazar, who said he is satisfied with that, now, wine producers can import their goods to Russia not only via Solntsevo (city situated near Moscow, where a customs gate for Moldovan wines is placed).

According to the paper, over last year, the relations between Russia and Moldova significantly warmed up, and even Gennady Onishenko, the Head of the RosPotrebNadzor and Russia's Chief Federal Sanitary Inspector, “stopped revealing harmful components in Moldovan wines”.

However, experts say it is unlikely that Moldova will re-gain the leading position at the Russian market. If before embargo of 2006, Moldovan wines had about 60% of the Russian market, now – up to 10%.

“It is impossible to restore the lost share, of course, if they do not borrow several billion [U.S.] dollars from the West and do not invest everything in the wines promotion in Russia”, president of Russian Union of Vine Growers and Winemakers, Leonid Popovich said.

However, Moldova also no longer considers Russia as its main outlet. The country reoriented to markets of neighboring countries and the European Union. The last one even assigned a duty-free quota of 15 million liters for supplying wines to the Schengen Area countries. Thus, Russia ranks the 3rd in the portfolio of Moldovan wine supplies, after Belarus and Ukraine.