Going all out for winemaking

Uzbekistan govt aims to make country a big producer of the fine spirit

PARKENT ( Uzbekistan): As the warm, busy autumn becomes a distant memory and winter extends its grip over the Central Asian steppe, Uzbek grape farmer Abdumutal Yuldashev’s harvest is bottled up, bound for Russia.

If once Yuldashev’s 15ha of land mostly yielded grapes for the table, now he and his small cohort of workers find themselves on the front lines of an ambitious state-led winemaking drive in the majorityMuslim country.

This season his team harvested Bayan Shirei and Rkatsiteli grape varieties, native to the former Soviet countries of the Caucasus.

But in the future, more internationally-renowned types such as Chardonnay and Cabernet could be the order of the day, if strongman President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s plan to overhaul the sector bears fruit.

A decree published by the presidential office in February called for a 60% increase in the state wine company’s wine exports by the end of 2021 from current levels.

By then too, it also wants the area under cultivation by the company to have doubled.

Mirziyoyev has pledged to unshackle Uzbekistan’s economy, weaning it off its dependence on commodities like the water-thirsty cotton crop that covers the country in swathes, while attracting foreign investors.

The plan calls for the “organisa-

tion of cultivation of especially valuable industrial varieties of grape seedlings”, including those from France, Italy, Chile and the United States.

However, industry experts have voiced reservations about Uzbekistan’s ability to become a maker of fine wines, while a wine festival organised in the capital, Tashkent, last month as part of the drive failed

to pique public interest.

That has not stopped 38-year-old private farmer Yuldashev from already thinking big.

“I want to expand next season by renting some of these other fields,” he said, gesturing across a vista of vineyards stretching towards the foothills of the Parkent mountains, 80km from Tashkent.

“It seems there is a lot of work

ahead,” he said.

For now, local winemaking is still a far cry from the chateaux of Burgundy, and some exports are still limited to the early, unfinished stages in the winemaking process.

Uzbekistan produces around 20 million litres of wine a year, compared to France’s more than four billion litres. — AFP

—AFP Hard at work: Workers sorting out the grapes after picking them from vines during the harvest at a vineyard outside the settlement of Zarkent, Uzbekistan.