Wine flows freely at Genatsvale, one of Moscow's many Georgian restaurants, as diners tuck into warm cheese bread and quaff glasses of traditional Georgian vintages -- Mukuzani, Kindzmarauli -- seated next to a decorative stream flowing through the room. As of today, the stream will keep flowing, but the Georgian wines may not, thanks to a ban on imports imposed by Russian health and sanitary officials. ''Of course you need sanitary rules. Everyone has them: France, Italy. But to ban all wines from one country like this? It's absurd. It's a fraud,'' said restaurant manager Maria Markoziya.
The ban, which also targets Moldovan wines, threatens to shut down Russia's billion-dollar market for the two ex-Soviet republics' wines and cognacs. It's the latest Russian shot across the bow for the two nations, whose West-leaning policies increasingly irk Moscow.
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