Soviet Vineyards Torn Out, Causing Shortage of Wine
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MOSCOW — Vast sections of vineyards have been torn out in the wake of an anti-alcohol drive over the last three years, and some Soviet wine-growers have been forced to feed their produce to animals, the daily newspaper Trud said Thursday.
Lamenting an acute shortage of wine throughout the country, Trud said: “It is not viticulture that has made drunkards of the people, but lack of culture, social conditions.”
The anti-alcohol campaign, launched by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev five years ago, led to a boom in illegal home brewing and cost the state up to $25 billion a year in lost income.
According to statistics gathered by a group of Soviet parliamentary deputies, vineyards in 1985 covered 3.5 million acres. The paper said more than a fourth of this area had been lost in the past three seasons.
In the face of widespread discontent and a run on sugar for making moonshine, the anti-alcohol campaign was relaxed this year and production is rising again. But Trud said it will take years to restore output.
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