Producers: Cheap wine is better than natural juice
Enterprises producing it enrich the budget…
ERB has calculated that the cost price of a bottle of cheap wine is about 300 roubles. Belarusian producers assure that it is possible to make tasty and good drinks even with that money. The wine will not be worse that foreign grape wine.
There are more than 2 thousand kinds of cheap wine in Belarus now. A bottle of it costs from 2.5 to 4.5 thousand roubles. ERB tried to find out where did the sum come from, what it consisted of and what ingredients were used by producers of “cheap and tasty” Belarusian wine.
The director of Talachyn tinned food factory Anatol Anyuhouski told ERB that half of the cost of wine was the state tax – the excise. Taking the popularity of the product into account, their enterprise is enriching the budget.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “There is about 45%. I mean the excise and so on. It reaches almost half of the cost. But our products are excised and their production and distribution have to be taxed. Ouк enterprise is enriching the budget. It made more than 11 billion roubles for the budget last year. And 1 more billion roubles was allocated to the pension fund. This is the right way! I think taxes and excise-duties for such products should not be reduced”.
It turns out that state taxes make up almost half of the cost of a bottle of wine. There are also extra charges, the cost of empty bottles, corks and labels and the income of the enterpriseю Sum it all up and you will have only 15 or 10% of the money to buy high-quality raw material. Or several hundred roubles. It is doubtful whether good raw material can be bought with the money. However, the director assures it can.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “We use only natural materials in our production – apples, cultivated and wild berries. Of course we use sugar and rectified alcohol. 90% of our alcohol is “first class” and “vodka” spirit. Where can you find any poison there? If the wine is produced illegally, without any state control, it will be poison. I do not doubt ti because the process of wine-making is very complicated and only professionals should engage in it”.
Moreover, the director is sure that their cheap wine contains more vitamins and is better for health than 100% juice.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “They say that modern juices given to children contain a lot of vitamins. Where did they find them?! Modern juices are just restored concentrated products. They are heat-treated which destroys practically all vitamins and vital amino acids. Then the juice arrives at plants where it gets restored again. 8 or 9 parts of water are added to it. It gets sterilized and packed. It is double heat-treatment! What vitamins can be found in this juice despite of the fact that it is written that they are 100% natural?!”
Thus, the director of Talachyn tinned food factory is sure that cheap Belarusian wine can also be tasty. He says it can even be useful.
The director of the production department of Maladzechna food factory Yauheniya Amilauskaya also assured ERB that Belarusian cheap wine was not worse than Moldavian or French wine despite of the low price and of the fact that the era of cheap wine has ended.
Yauhenіya Amіlauskaya: It was considered to be “low quality wine” when suspicious concentrated products from Russia were used. Now there are enough raw materials, technologies and professional wine-makers in Belarus so that we could make good wine instead of “low quality wine”. It is comparable to Moldavian wine. We do not know what they import in that “material”. It smells like Isabella… To cut the long story short, they have good grape wine and we have good fruit wine.
She also set the most important example in favour of Belarusian wine at the end of our conversation.
Yauhenіya Amіlauskaya: “If the moment suits me, I drink my wine, I am not afraid to drink it. What else should be said?!”
ERB told one of the best Belarusian experts in narcology about the conversation with wine-makers and asked him to comment on their idea about the usefulness of Belarusian cheap wine.
Expert: “Any drink, if it is an alcoholic beverage, be it gin-tonic, French, Portuguese, Spanish or our “cheap” wine, vodka, cognac, etc. – anything containing alcohol is not good for health and for the society. It is not good to compare it to juice. Children drink juice and they suddenly announce that wine is useful! We do not need such advertisements in a country having problems with alcohol abuse”.
He also commented on the fact that it was possible to make good products using such small sums of money.
Expert: “We also drink wine and know something about it. Some wine is better and some wine is worse. You should not only think about the taste. Think about the consequences. Think what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow… Here the fairy tale about our cheap tasty wine ends”.
The leader of N.R.M. Lyavon Volski says he used to drink low quality wine. Now he drinks only good Spanish wine. However, he admits that our producers are capable of making good wine using little money.
Lyavon Volskі: “There is no wonder it is so cheap. You know, low quality wine is divided into strong beverages and cheap wine. Wine can be drunk and beverages like “Kryzhachok” are bad for health. They are made from some essence, from cheap spirit. This stuff is called strong alcoholic beverages. I have tasted it a few times, but I do not recommend it in any case! Maybe good wine can be made somewhere in Belarus. You need to visit plants and they should demonstrate that everything is clean and that they have European equipment, etc. Than it will be possible to taste it”.
ERB has calculated that the cost price of a bottle of cheap wine is about 300 roubles. Belarusian producers assure that it is possible to make tasty and good drinks even with that money. The wine will not be worse that foreign grape wine.
There are more than 2 thousand kinds of cheap wine in Belarus now. A bottle of it costs from 2.5 to 4.5 thousand roubles. ERB tried to find out where did the sum come from, what it consisted of and what ingredients were used by producers of “cheap and tasty” Belarusian wine.
The director of Talachyn tinned food factory Anatol Anyuhouski told ERB that half of the cost of wine was the state tax – the excise. Taking the popularity of the product into account, their enterprise is enriching the budget.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “There is about 45%. I mean the excise and so on. It reaches almost half of the cost. But our products are excised and their production and distribution have to be taxed. Ouк enterprise is enriching the budget. It made more than 11 billion roubles for the budget last year. And 1 more billion roubles was allocated to the pension fund. This is the right way! I think taxes and excise-duties for such products should not be reduced”.
It turns out that state taxes make up almost half of the cost of a bottle of wine. There are also extra charges, the cost of empty bottles, corks and labels and the income of the enterpriseю Sum it all up and you will have only 15 or 10% of the money to buy high-quality raw material. Or several hundred roubles. It is doubtful whether good raw material can be bought with the money. However, the director assures it can.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “We use only natural materials in our production – apples, cultivated and wild berries. Of course we use sugar and rectified alcohol. 90% of our alcohol is “first class” and “vodka” spirit. Where can you find any poison there? If the wine is produced illegally, without any state control, it will be poison. I do not doubt ti because the process of wine-making is very complicated and only professionals should engage in it”.
Moreover, the director is sure that their cheap wine contains more vitamins and is better for health than 100% juice.
Anatol Anyuhouskі: “They say that modern juices given to children contain a lot of vitamins. Where did they find them?! Modern juices are just restored concentrated products. They are heat-treated which destroys practically all vitamins and vital amino acids. Then the juice arrives at plants where it gets restored again. 8 or 9 parts of water are added to it. It gets sterilized and packed. It is double heat-treatment! What vitamins can be found in this juice despite of the fact that it is written that they are 100% natural?!”
Thus, the director of Talachyn tinned food factory is sure that cheap Belarusian wine can also be tasty. He says it can even be useful.
The director of the production department of Maladzechna food factory Yauheniya Amilauskaya also assured ERB that Belarusian cheap wine was not worse than Moldavian or French wine despite of the low price and of the fact that the era of cheap wine has ended.
Yauhenіya Amіlauskaya: It was considered to be “low quality wine” when suspicious concentrated products from Russia were used. Now there are enough raw materials, technologies and professional wine-makers in Belarus so that we could make good wine instead of “low quality wine”. It is comparable to Moldavian wine. We do not know what they import in that “material”. It smells like Isabella… To cut the long story short, they have good grape wine and we have good fruit wine.
She also set the most important example in favour of Belarusian wine at the end of our conversation.
Yauhenіya Amіlauskaya: “If the moment suits me, I drink my wine, I am not afraid to drink it. What else should be said?!”
ERB told one of the best Belarusian experts in narcology about the conversation with wine-makers and asked him to comment on their idea about the usefulness of Belarusian cheap wine.
Expert: “Any drink, if it is an alcoholic beverage, be it gin-tonic, French, Portuguese, Spanish or our “cheap” wine, vodka, cognac, etc. – anything containing alcohol is not good for health and for the society. It is not good to compare it to juice. Children drink juice and they suddenly announce that wine is useful! We do not need such advertisements in a country having problems with alcohol abuse”.
He also commented on the fact that it was possible to make good products using such small sums of money.
Expert: “We also drink wine and know something about it. Some wine is better and some wine is worse. You should not only think about the taste. Think about the consequences. Think what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow… Here the fairy tale about our cheap tasty wine ends”.
The leader of N.R.M. Lyavon Volski says he used to drink low quality wine. Now he drinks only good Spanish wine. However, he admits that our producers are capable of making good wine using little money.
Lyavon Volskі: “There is no wonder it is so cheap. You know, low quality wine is divided into strong beverages and cheap wine. Wine can be drunk and beverages like “Kryzhachok” are bad for health. They are made from some essence, from cheap spirit. This stuff is called strong alcoholic beverages. I have tasted it a few times, but I do not recommend it in any case! Maybe good wine can be made somewhere in Belarus. You need to visit plants and they should demonstrate that everything is clean and that they have European equipment, etc. Than it will be possible to taste it”.
