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Wine Description
The Story
Begun by Prince Golitzin in the late 19th century, the Massandra Collection comprises examples of every Massandra vintage, as well as European wines from the personal collection of Golitzin himself. While the primary purpose of the collection was - and still is - for research purposes (i.e. to allow for study of the ageing process.), in more recent times the collection has taken on a commercial function in that it is used as a "deposit" in order to ensure that commercial quantities of mature wines are available for sale. To this end, some 10,000 bottles are added to the collection each year. The Collection has had a remarkable history. In the years immediately following the Russian Revolution, the Crimea was plunged into political turmoil as White Russians (aided and abetted by German invaders and Anglo-French interventionists) struggled to maintain control of the area. In the midst of this, the Massandra Collection could easily have been looted, but the entrances to the tunnels in which it was stored were bricked up so skillfully that it was never discovered.
When the Red Army finally took control of the area in late 1920, they discovered the collection but, rather than raid it, they added to it wines from the Tsar's palaces at Moscow, St. Petersburg and Livadia. In the following years, wine-making at Massandra continued and the collection was further augmented. In 1941, however, the charmed, tranquil life of the collection was brutally disrupted by the imminent threat of Nazi invasion. In an attempt to avoid Nazi appropriation, the entire collection was packed up and taken out of Yalta to three secret locations. It was a monumental undertaking: each bottle of wine was marked with an evacuation number and carefully crated before being transported to a safe place. The only casualty in all of this was the 1941 vintage which could not be crated out because it was still in vats at the time. Rather than surrender it to the Nazis, Aleksander Yegorov, the director of the winery, ordered that it be poured into the sea, and for the first (and possibly last) time ever, the Black Sea turned red. The collection remained hidden until 1944, when it was returned to its original resting place.
