MOSCOW, April 19 Among European countries, Italy in January of this year became the main exporter of wine to Russia for the first time since July 2014, it was found out by studying European statistics.
Thus, in January of this year, Italy supplied 19.8 million euros worth of wine to Russia, which allowed it to take first place in the volume of exports of this drink from the European Union and overtake Latvia. Before this, the last time Italy took first place was in July 2014, and it lost its more or less stable leadership at the end of 2011. 
Rome was also the first in February, supplying Moscow with wine worth a record 27.3 million euros. Second place went to Latvia, which supplied wine worth 7.8 million euros to Russia, and third place went to Lithuania with a supply of 7.6 million euros. Next come Spain (3.1 million euros), Germany (2.9 million euros) and Portugal (1.4 million euros). At the same time, for the first time in almost a year and a half (17 months), Russia bought a batch of wine from Croatia — for 41 thousand euros.
In a year, from February 2023 to February 2024, wine sales to Russia increased most in Italy — by 2.52 times, Portugal — by 2.47 times, Germany — by 2.3 times, and Poland — 2.25 times (up to 6.9 million euros for this February).
In total, at the end of February 2024, Russia bought 58 million euros worth of wine from the EU. Of these, 47% came from Italy, 13.3% from Latvia and 13% from Lithuania. And for the entire 2023, the volume of wine exports to the Russian Federation amounted to 809 million euros. Of these, a share of 43% came from Latvia, a share of 24% from Lithuania, and a share of 20% from Italy.