Magarach Wine-Making and Viticulture Institute

(full name, Magarach All-Union Scientific Re-search Institute of the Ministry of the Food Industry of the USSR), a leading scientific research institution; coordinates research on viticulture and wine-making in the USSR. It was created in Yalta around the Magarach Wine-making Establishment of the State Nikitskii Botanical Garden, which was organized in 1829. The establishment was later converted into a division of the botanical garden. In 1931 the division was reorganized into a zonal station of the wine-making industry, and in 1940 the present scientific research institute was founded. As of 1970, the Magarach Institute had 12 experimental divisions, five laboratories, a sector for the scientific organization of labor, a division for the scientific and technical dissemination of ideas and for publishing, a Moscow branch (located near the Kuchino station on the Moscow railroad), a support point, three experimental farms, and an experimental winery. The institute works on the creation and improvement of the characteristics of wine-grape crops and agricultural systems to ensure a higher level of mechanization, larger harvests, and better quality of the grapes and grape products; the development of machine systems to care for the vines; the development of new technology and the improvement of existing technology and the quality of the wines; the creation of flow technology, with automated processes; and the production of new types of high-quality wines; and modern technological equipment. The institute has a graduate training program.

The results of the institute’s research are published in Trudy …. (vols. 1-17, 1946-70—), as well as in monographs, brochures, and magazine articles. The institute has also published a major ten-volume work, Ampelografiia SSSR (1946-70), on quality testing in viticulture.