WHAT IS IT? : Cheap 'Portvein' Widens Its Appeal

While the number 666 has satanic connotations, 777 has its own devilish reputation -- it is said to be the number of seconds it takes to dissolve a brick in a pool of 777 portvein, a brand of port wine.


Despite jokes about some kinds of portvein, others are considered close relatives of the renowned original from Portugal. According to Irina Shishova, a specialist at the wine-making section of the state department on the food-processing industry, Dagestani Kizlyar portvein even won a medal from the Portugese Association of Port Makers.


Produced in many former Soviet republics, portvein is wine fortified with alcohol; the original is fortified with brandy.


It has 18 percent to 20 percent alcohol, and there are dozens of white, tawny and ruby portveins. Vintage and even ordinary Massandra portveins produced in Crimea are considered the best. Fans talk dreamily about Yuzhnoberezhny, Krymsky and Livadiya.


"Good port must have a slightly nutty flavor and a certain quality of warmth enveloping your mouth as you drink," Shishova said. "It should never be drunk glass after glass. It's supposed to be sipped from a shot glass and thoroughly savored and enjoyed."


Some seasoned consumers, however, have a much lower image of portvein. Dmitry Shagin, leader of the Mitki artists' group from St. Petersburg who once made portvein part of their lifestyle -- described in books and immortalized in pictures and in a film featuring some 50 Soviet portvein labels -- said it hurts even to remember drinking portvein.


"The name sounds nice but it was just hooch," said Shagin, who stopped drinking a few years ago. "We drank it because for the price of one vodka bottle you could get two bottles of portvein."


The cheapest booze available in Soviet days, portvein was the drink of choiceamong impoverished alcoholics, students and officially unemployed bohemians.


"Mama is anarchy, daddy is a glass of portvein," goes a song by the late rocker Viktor Tsoi.


During the late 1980s portvein was hard to find, like any booze, because of the infamous anti-alcohol campaign.


Mitki, most of whom had no official jobs, little money and lots of free time, used to browse the city in search of any store that would sell portvein.


Following one Mitki ritual, a portvein bottle had to be emptied in one breath straight from the bottle in the podyezd just before walking into a party, Shagin recalled. They'd walk into the party sober and turn drunk in just a few minutes, befuddling the host and other guests.


Some people with ambition had higher standards. Students of the Leningrad Military Academy, for instance, mixed portvein with more expensive cognac and champagne to create "the brown bear."


"The result was the same old portvein, but with gas," Shagin said. "But that made them feel special."


The quality of portvein in Soviet times was poor because production did not allow time for the wine to properly ferment, Shishova said. Today, however, producers are trying to meet demands for good portvein, she said.


But because many of the producers, once in Soviet republics, are now in different countries, it's not always easy to find portvein in Moscow.