Pushkin House is delighted to invite you to a Christmas Special Wine Club, at which we’ll taste various Christmas wines from different countries and learn about their origins.

Join our wine expert Tanya Nesterova for an evening dedicated to the Russian writer Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, whose love for good food and wine is well documented. You will hear about Turgenev’s travels and taste the styles of wines he could have drunk or served to his friends when he stayed in the great wine regions of Europe and beyond.

Russians have always had a soft spot for Italy: the Italian character, the way of life, the scenery and nature that are so dramatic and tranquil at the same time, Italian art, and of course wine and food. The love of Italian wine in Russia probably goes back to the second half of the 18th Century when Catherine the Great tried Moscato di Scanzo, brought to her by the famous Italian architect Giacomo Quarengi, who was building St Petersburg at the time. The wine was from his hometown of Bergamo, where it is still traditionally produced today.