YEKATERINBURG, May 27. /TASS/. It will not be easy for restauranteurs and owners of wine bars in Russia’s Sverdlovsk Region to replace one-fifth of their menu with Russian wines, including due to the fact that the market still lacks domestically-produced alternatives to a number of dry wines, vice president of the regional association of cookery experts and caterers Oleg Ponomaryov told TASS.

In the middle of April, the Agriculture Ministry’s deputy department head Irina Fedina said that the ministry expected the bill on defining the minimum share of Russian wines in wine lists and on supermarket shelves to be submitted to the government shortly. According to the document, the share of Russia-produced wine should not be less than 20% of the total number of wines.

"The Russian producer does not make sparkling wines in the assortment and quality demanded by the market. Regarding the assortment of red and white wines, probably, here the range of dry domestic wines will seriously lose: <…> among dry wines, aged, of certain collections, there are no Russian analogues," he said, adding that at the moment in most restaurants of the region, Russian wines make up less than one-fifth of the assortment.

It will hardly be possible to replace a portion of wines with analogues due to the particular influence of the climate on grapes used for producing the beverage, the expert added. In particular, finding analogues of such grapes as Australian shiraz, as well as analogues of the ‘Chilean climate’ wines, French Beaujolais and Chablis, will be the most challenging, he said.

Specialized places, such as wine retailers and wine bars, will also find it difficult to observe the requirement of one-fifth of domestic wines in the menu and drink menu, Ponomaryov noted, adding that so far the variety of Russian wines does not allow replacing one-fifth of the assortment with it.

Moreover, domestic products are still more expensive than a number of imported analogues, he stressed. TASS said earlier, citing research conducted by the Kontur.Market that the demand for Russian wine brands fell by 20% over the last year in Russia amid growth in the average price of those products. Compared with last year, the average price of a bottle of domestic wine gained 18%. That said, sales of wines could have contracted due to consumers’ shift to alternative drinks, such as beer or cocktails with added hard liquor, analysts said.