Even before the
Greek colonization of the Black Sea area, the local inhabitants of the region already supported winemaking. However, the craft became more wide spread during Greek colonization in ancient times. This area was under the influence of the Greeks until the middle of the 2nd century BC. After the conquest of the
province of Dacia by Emperor
Trajan in
105–106, these lands were influenced by the Romans, who actively colonized this region. After the transition of the Roman troops to the south in 271, a part of the colonists remained in the area, who passed on the experience of breeding grape varieties and wine making methods to the native population. The successful acclimatization of the grape vine is connected with the technological revolution of the farms of the Northern Black Sea region. The first written mention of the late modern era is a letter from
Voivode Stefan Chmielecki, who presented "one vineyard" to the family of Nikoa Varzar and his brother Theodore (1600–1625). There is evidence from Skendo, which reports on the case of wine delivery to Moscow in 1790. After the
capture of Ochakov in 1788,
Prince Potemkin provided the colonists and Ukrainians with vineyards in
Slobodzia,
Iași,
Biliaivka, and
Ovidiopol. In general, the modern territory of the Odesa Oblast encompassed fully or partially the
Ananiv,
Odesa,
Izmail,
Akkerman, and
Balta districts. In the 19th century, a large number of representatives of various nationalities settled in Odesa, which contributed to the spread of winemaking in the region. So, from
Izmail and
Kiliia to the
Dniester Estuary,
Armenian settlements spread.
Bulgarians founded their villages nearby, and the first German colonists from the
Duchy of Warsaw, and later from
Württemberg and
Alsace, arrived here. The Greek uprising prompted refugees from
Thrace and the
Archipelago to move to new lands. They settled in Ishmael,
Reni and
Akkerman. Ukrainians and
Moldovans (
Romanians) immigrated from Ukraine (
Podilia), and educated farmers immigrated from
French Switzerland. All this provided the definition of the region as "America of the Old World." The first vineyard in Odesa, "for the purpose of horticulture and wine making," was founded in 1798 by a retired major of the Greek battalion in
Moldavanka, near Vodnaya Balka. Seedlings were brought from Ackerman, but not all took root and vines were delivered from France and Spain. The first barrels of cultured wine were corked here. In 1809, Richelieu founded "real tree plantations" at this place, which today is called
Dyukivsky Park. Odesa merchant Ivan Rubo planted 250,000 grape vines and had nurseries with 130,000 French seedlings on his hundred acres of land near the Tiraspol tract. According to the statistics of the Odesa city authorities, in Odesa alone in 1807 there were 8 vineyards with an area of more than 10 acres, from 1812 to 1818 there were 54, and in 1827 there were more than 162 of them. According to the same statistics of 1860, Odesa produced 32 thousand barrels of wine, colonists and state peasants – more than 40 thousand barrels each, and landowners – approximately 5 thousand barrels. The years 1820–1850 are characterized by rapid growth, then by a decrease until 1890, and later by an increase until 1913 of the wine-growing area in Odesa. From 1885 to 1910 were the most productive years for the wine industry of the region, which today (the 21st century) is called the Odesa Oblast. The area of vineyards has grown to 7 thousand hectares. Approximately one million poods of wine, mostly Bessarabian wine from Akkerman, with only a third being from the
Crimea and the
Caucasus were imported into Odesa itself annually. Imports are small, 20,000 poods in wooden containers. There are strong wines:
Marsala,
Madeira,
Sherry and up to 40,000 bottles of sparkling wines. 600–700 thousand poods were exported to various cities of the Russian Empire through the port and by rail. There were companies owned by Nuvo, Sinadino, Rosenblatt, Bernstein, Guinand, Bolgarov, Syrogos, Fischer, Rabinovich and the factories of the Winery Society (1,300,000 rubles in assets) and Roederer (500,000 rubles). After the start of the
Great War and the
Russian Revolution in 1914–1922, plantations were massively destroyed, but from the mid-1920s, during the
New Economic Policy (NEP) policy and later, wine making was partially restored until 1936. In 1931, the People's Commissariat of Land Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR appropriated the winery named after V. Tairov on the
Sukhyi Estuary to the Institute of Viticulture and Wine making. At the same time, it was actually forbidden to cite and popularize scientists, breeders, and specialists who developed wine making in Odesa until 1917. After the Second World War and
collectivization, there was a decline in production again. Already in the 1950s and until the end of the 1970s, the rise of the wine industry began. A new segment of the rapid development of wine making in Odesa Oblast occurred in the 1960s: then the area of our
vineyards almost equaled those of
Moldova and "Odessovkhozvintrest," which united 26 wine state farms and 13 wineries, and produced as many products as Crimean associations. At the end of the 1980s of the last century, the Odesa region produced 3.2 million litres of wine, and more than 10 million bottles of champagne were produced. Viticulture in Odesa region reached its greatest development in 1981–1985: 18,500 hectares of new vineyards were planted. Vineyards occupied 2% of the area of agricultural land in the region, at the same time they provided 15% of cash receipts and up to 25% of profit from the sale of plant products.
Prohibition of perestroika led to the mass extermination of the wine industry. According to economists' calculations, in 1985–1990,
Odesa Oblast lost almost 1 billion dollars in the grape and wine-making complex. Over the past thirty years, the area of grape plantations has decreased by more than 2.5 times.
Gross turnover also decreased by 2.2 times. Over the past thirty years, more than 50,000 hectares of vineyards in the Odesa Oblast have been uprooted. Since 2023, numerous wines from Odesa Oblast have
geographical indication protection in Ukraine, including Chabag and Acha-Abag (from
Shabo), Prydunaiska Bessarabia, Yapluh, and Frumushika Valley. ==Climate and geology==