On a warm early-summer day, winemaker Mykhailo Molchanov trimmed foliage from his organic vines in southern Ukraine, his dog Direktor at his heels.
The scene was idyllic—bees buzzed, birds sang—but an unexploded Russian rocket lay half-buried between rows of Chardonnay grapes.
The Molchanovs have chosen to work around it rather than risk damaging their vines with heavy removal machinery.
When Russia's full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022, Mykhailo and his wife Svitlana fled their home in Mykolaiv to their winery across the Southern Buh River.
By early March, they found themselves between the lines, under artillery fire from both armies.
“You could see the rockets going directly up towards space,” said their son Heorhii, who is central to the business.
The family's wine cellar served as a bomb shelter. “We used to have a pretty decent 2017 Cabernet down there.
Not any more,” Mykhailo noted.
The capture of Mykolaiv was a key Russian objective, which would have opened the way to Odesa.
The Molchanovs were dangerously close to the battle, with Russian troops on the opposite bank trying to encircle the city.
“We are lucky they could have crossed the river,” Heorhii said.
Despite the war, the family has expanded their vineyard acreage and plans to increase production from 10,000 bottles a year to 30,000–50,000 over the next decade.
They grow both international varieties and native Ukrainian grapes like telti kuruk and odesa black.
Mykhailo believes Ukrainian wine has huge potential.
“I was listening to Italian wine growers at a conference—their situation reminded me of ours, except they were talking about the 1960s.”
The Molchanovs are also part of a new cooperative that hopes to attract tourists to a winery on the road to the ancient Greek settlement of Olbia, once the war ends.
Meanwhile, they run a hub for local winemakers who have lost their own vineyards.
One visitor was Olha Kashchenko, who lives in the dangerous city of Kherson with her young son.
She once worked as a wine tour guide and dreamed of making wine.
She bought land and built a house, but her plot is now in the red zone, the house destroyed, and she has been unable to reach it since 2023.
“We plan to return, we will rebuild and plant our own grapes. But the area is mined,” she said.
According to Svitlana Tsybak, president of the Ukrainian Association of Craft Winemakers, the country's vineyard area has shrunk from 68,000 hectares in 2014 to just 15,000 hectares now, due to the annexation of Crimea, occupation, and the destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
Many large growers have switched to sunflowers or wheat.
Yet, remarkably, 82 craft wineries have been established since 2022, mostly in safer central and western regions.
Tsybak is also CEO of Beykush winery, located on a narrow cape southwest of Mykolaiv, close to the strategic town of Ochakiv and within sight of Russian-occupied territory.
The winery produces about 65,000 bottles a year, but it is far too dangerous for visitors.
Head winemaker Olha Romashko has moved into the winery for safety, and the team works under a blackout after 10 pm.
Three former colleagues are serving in the army.
“When there isn’t an FPV drone or anything else for a while—then it’s strange, and people start to be suspicious,” Romashko said.
In November 2022, she and deputy winemaker Oleksandr Pashkovsky planted malbec grapes, having ordered the vines two years earlier.
“You can’t just stop taking care of it. You have to keep on,” Pashkovsky said.
“Sometimes we do forget there’s a war—we are busy, getting on with it.”
Looking at the blossoming vines, he added: “When you look at these buds, how could you possibly abandon them?”
