Agrofirm "Yuzhnaya" opened a time capsule that had been lying in the ground for more than 40 years
At the production site of the Yuzhnaya agricultural company in the Temryuk region, a time capsule was taken out, sealed by workers of the Kuban state farm in 1982. Inside they found a message to the 21st century and 300 bottles of wine from the 1981 vintage.
The ceremony of raising the capsule was attended by those who laid it then: chief winemaker Alexander Vishnevsky, microbiologists Natalya Guba and Lyubov Vishnevskaya, technologists Irina Kolesnik and Nina Dmitrenko, sports engineer Alexey Nesyutin.
Special equipment had to be used to extract the time capsule. The message was securely hidden at a depth of two meters and concreted. The ten-liter bottle neatly contained photographs of the winery, an appeal to descendants, and a list of employees. All documents are preserved in excellent condition. In the message, which took up three typewritten sheets, Soviet youth talked about the plant’s achievements, exceeding the Tenth Five-Year Plan plan and the introduction of wine making technology, which was progressive at that time. The letter states that in 1981, for the first time in Kuban, the plant mastered the production of Madera Kubanskaya vintage wine.
“Our technologists made a splash then,” recalls Alexander Vishnevsky, who worked as the chief winemaker in 1982. – For the production of Madeira, special grape varieties were grown - Rkatsiteli and Kleret. The technology has been studied all over the world. They built two solariums, in which the temperature in summer reached 70 degrees, in winter - up to 20 degrees. We trained our coopers, who produced oak containers for 100 thousand liters. "Madera was our pride."
Along with the message, the capsule contained 300 bottles of wine: Madeira, Port, Cahors-32, Muscat of Hamburg, Pinot Franc, Pinot Gris, Riesling. All found artifacts will be stored in the Yuzhnaya agricultural company. The company plans to create a new capsule with a message to descendants.
“Yuzhnaya” is the history and experience of generations of winegrowers and winemakers. We carefully preserve their traditions and develop them with the help of modern technologies. The agricultural company has come a long way from a small farm to the largest enterprise in the region, becoming part of the Ariant group of companies in 2003, we opened a new page in our development. Today we are the leaders in growing grapes in Russia,” said Igor Chemeris, General Director of the Yuzhnaya agricultural firm.