Kolonist

Ivan Plachkov built Kolonist from scratch in Krynychne, the village in Bolhrad district of Odesa Oblast where he was born. The winery takes its name from the Bulgarian colonists who settled this part of Bessarabia in the 19th century. Krynychne itself was founded by Bulgarian settlers in 1813. UAwines, the winery's UK importer, adds that one of those colonists was Ivan's great-grandfather and that the portrait on the logo is his.

He began in 2005 with 1.5 hectares and 3,000 bottles. He runs the winery with his wife Alla Plachkova, the co-owner, who wrote the slogan for its Odesa Black and named its Magnum Opus. Sources split on the size today: the winery page gives 33 hectares and about 280,000 bottles a year, while a 2025 profile on its own site gives 72 hectares and 300,000 bottles.

The vines grow on the south-western slopes above Lake Yalpuh, in Danube Bessarabia, on mineral-rich loam over deep layers of lime. They are pruned to Guyot and cordon and picked by hand. Alongside Cabernet, Merlot, Chardonnay and Riesling, Kolonist works with Ukrainian grapes. It calls itself the first to bottle Sukholymanske on its own, and it made its first varietal Odesa Black in 2007.

Consultant oenologist Olivier Dauga has worked with the winery since 2007. The cellar combines French, German and Italian equipment with French oak barrels. The range once ran to 25 labels and is now about a dozen wines: dry, semi-dry and dessert still wines, from the Danube Bessarabia line to a wine named for Ivan Plachkov himself, and the Bisser sparkling wines, which began with a season he spent in an English sparkling-wine cellar in 2013.