Many odious personalities of the «gallant age» were involved in the creation of Massandra winery. Judge for yourself, Prince Potemkin — the most influential favorite of Catherine the Great, who granted local lands to distinguished nobility. Among them was Carl Nassau-Siegen, one of the most effective admirals of the Russian Navy. Sophia Pototskaya, the very one for whom the dendrological park in Uman was created, bought the land from him, where Massandra winery stands today. The daughter of a famous Greek woman sold the Massandra estate to Count Vorontsov. He started to build his own winery and cellars on the lands where vines had been cultivated since ancient times.
It was Vorontsov’s farm that after the death of the Prince was bought by the Udelnoe Department and became the basis, thanks to which Lev Golitsyn turned Massandra into the capital of winemaking of the Russian Empire. Lev Golitsyn is another legend of pre-revolutionary Russia. He was best described by Gilyarovsky in his «Moscow and Muscovites». The journalist voiced the main life goal of Lev Golitsyn. The prince dreamed of making high-quality, but cheap wine. Thus, he wanted to replace vodka, which was consumed by the bulk of Russians, with a natural and healthy drink from the Crimea.
Lev Golitsyn held the position of chief winemaker in the Udelnye department. Therefore, already in 1894 in the former estate of Nassau-Zigenu-Pototskoy-Vorontsov in Massandra a global construction began — the first tunnel-type winery in the state was being created. 7 tunnels were knocked out in the mountain body. Each tunnel was 5 meters wide and 150 meters long. In each tunnel by natural way, as in the Crimean caves, the temperature of about 11°C was established, which was recognized as optimal for aging and storage of hop beverage. The construction was supervised by the chamberlain of the court V.N. Kachalov. Already in 1898 the first wine of own production was put into the underground vaults of the Massandra winery.
In the era of formation of the Soviet Union, the activity of the largest on the peninsula factory for the production of table and dessert wines flowed according to the plan worked out under Golitsyn. But taking into account the fact that the nearby Massandrovsky Palace housed Stalin’s state dacha, the first persons of the state became interested in the activity of the enterprise.
Mikoyan’s order about the control of the factory’s products, as well as the creation of a collection fund, has been preserved. Every year 500 bottles of liquids of all brands and varieties were put into the Golden Reserve, the inviolable fund of the Massandra winery. Thanks to the attention of the Commissioner of Food Industry of the USSR, the Crimean enoteca became a record-breaker in the Guinness Book, having demonstrated 1 million bottles of precious drink to the experts in 1998.
Having planned holiday in Crimea, you can taste any of the 60 vintage wines in the tasting room, which is located on the territory of the winery «Massandra». 50 thousand tourists annually delight themselves with the taste of local «Aligote», «Kokur Calliston», white and pink «Muscats», as well as enjoy the bouquet of local «Sherry», «Cabernet» and «Chardonnay». In addition to oral enotherapy, other attractions of Massandra await guests — the eponymous palace of Alexander III, a luxurious park, warm sea, picturesque mountains, as well as proximity to the delights of sunny Yalta and Nikitskij botanical garden.