RosPoterbNadzor selects 10 Moldovan companies that will export wine to Russia

RosPotrebNadzor has scrutinised documents on 35 Moldovan wine enterprises and has selected some 10 of them, which, according to the documents, meet Russia's requirements, the webpage www.vinmoldova.md announces, quoting Russian sources. Ghenadi Oniscenko, Russia's Chief Federal Sanitary Inspector, said first consignments of Moldovan wines may appear at the Russian market in early February or may be even in late January. Now RosPotrebNadzor experts will visit the “winners” to examine situation on the site in order to see how the papers correspond to the reality. Oniscenko stated earlier that first consignments of Moldovan wine could be imported in January-February 2007. The imports will be performed by companies with a serious reputation in wine-making, the Russian official said, mentioning that “although he is not personally a wine expert, he trusts the experts who told him that Moldova has good wines indeed”. Onischenko welcomed the possible Moldova’s acceptance of the fact that under the brands of well-known Moldovan companies, consignments of falsified beverages used to be supplied to Russia. At the same time, he confirmed another essential fact - that some of the above fakes used to be made on the territory of Russia. He said there were nearly 120 such companies in Russia that supplied such Moldovan and Georgian “wines”. Having no possibility of a civilized trade, they eventually quitted the wine market or got bankrupt. RosPotrebNadzor banned the imports of Moldovan and Georgian wines into Russia in March 2006, citing their poor quality.