Russia tests online sale of its wine via Russian Post
On April 3, the Government Commission on Legislative Activities approved bills that would allow testing online sales of Russian wine through the Russian Post. The announcement cited statements from government press services and the Ministry of Finance. The changes were developed by the Ministry of Finance. The commission’s approval signals that legislative acts detailing the start and rules of the remote wine sale experiment are ready to be submitted to the State Duma for consideration, according to officials familiar with the matter.
A representative of the Ministry of Finance told RBC that the document will be reviewed at a government meeting before it proceeds to the State Duma. No date was provided for when that meeting might take place.
The final bill text indicates that the experiment would run from November 1 to July 31, 2026, within Moscow and the Moscow region, with the possibility of expanding its geographic scope. Earlier versions proposed adding the Leningrad and Nizhny Novgorod regions in the experiment.
For the purposes of the trial, only Russian-made still, sparkling, and fortified wines produced from grapes grown in Russia would be eligible for online sale via a dedicated website run by the Russian Post. The Ministry of Agriculture is tasked with compiling a list of eligible producers who can participate.
Russia barred remote alcohol sales in 2007. In 2017, the Ministry of Finance drafted legislation to enable online alcohol sales starting in 2020, but objections from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Interior halted that effort.
In the broader regional context, some former members of the Eurasian Economic Union have viewed Russia’s online wine sales plan as discriminatory. [Source: Government channels and ministry statements]