Rare wine for Berlusconi creates stir

Drinking buddies…Silvio Berlusconi and Vladimir Putin.

Berlusconi and Putin spent last weekend on the recently-annexed peninsula touring ancient ruins, before visiting Massandra, which had been owned by the Ukranian government prior to Crimea’s annexation.

President Putin took Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister on a tour of the Massandra Winery in Crimea, which reportedly has the largest wine collection in the world.

Massandra was Ukrainian government property before Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014, but has since been nationalised by the Kremlin.

Ukrainian prosecutors for Crimea, who are working in exile, say the bottle was worth more than $90,000 (£58,000), Radio Free Europe reported.

“This wine is not just the property of Crimea or Massandra but of the whole Ukrainian people”, Nazar Kholodnitsky, an official from the prosecutors’ office, told AFP.

Ms Pavlenko’s predecessor as governor, Nikolay Boyko, was dismissed in February after Russian prosecutors filed fraud charges against him.

“Now she’s added one more crime to high treason”, Mr Kholodnytsky said.

According to Ukrainian law, presenting a bottle to someone as a gift without the presidential go-ahead could be seen as theft.

Berlusconi picked up one of the five bottles of 1775 Jeres de la Frontera believed to be kept in the collection – a 1891 vintage – and asked “Is is possible to drink?” Later on, Mr Berlusconi brought over a bottle to show to the party, and the director said: “The year 1891”. The director said “yes”.

Pavlenko, who gave the tour last week, said on the phone that she showed the rare wines to Putin and Berlusconi but declined to comment on whether any wine was drunk during the visit.