The winery was exempted from the uprooting of Russian vineyards that occurred in the wake of anti-alcohol laws passed by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s.

[3] Though initially popular with the Russian aristocracy who spent their summers near Czar Nicholas, the winery has since been visited by several notable personalities including Anton Chekhov, Maxim Gorky, Ho Chi Minh, and Josip Broz Tito.

In 2015 the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, visited the winery with the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.

[2] While touring the winery, Putin and Berlusconi allegedly drank from a 1775 bottle of Jerez de la Frontera worth $90,000.

The tour was conducted by the winery's pro-Russian director, Yanina Pavlenko, and charges of embezzlement were subsequently prepared against her by Ukrainian prosecutors.