Why it matters
The producer
Villa Tinta is the public-facing wine brand of Vinhol Oksamytne, a family estate working in Odesa. The defining choice is to put local grapes beside a range of still, sparkling and oak-aged wines: Sukholimansky becomes a dry white, Odesa Black appears in both a dry Premium bottling and a French-oak-aged VIP wine, and Tintarella carries the sparkling side of the cellar.
Founded as a family estate in 1998, Vinhol Oksamytne has built its range around several ways of handling its regional material. Sukholimansky is made as a dry white; Odesa Black is made dry in Premium form and then taken in a different direction in the VIP Collection with six months in French oak. The result is not one fixed style but a useful contrast between dry fruit-led winemaking, sparkling wines and a red shaped by élevage.
Place and vineyards
Where the wines begin
The winery stands in Oksamitnoe village in Bolgrad district and associates its wines with Lake Yalpug in Danube Bessarabia. That association matters most as a way of locating the bottles: this is Lake Yalpug country rather than a generic Ukrainian label, and the estate uses it alongside grapes such as Odesa Black and Sukholimansky that make the range feel rooted in its own corner of Odesa.
Lake Yalpug is the supported site reference for Vinhol Oksamytne’s wines. The estate presents its terroir through that lake and Danube Bessarabia, so the useful site connection is geographical rather than geological: the place names establish where Villa Tinta’s local-grape wines belong, without claiming unverified soil types, slopes or vineyard measurements.
In the cellar
Vineyards and cellar
The vineyard side is visible in the grapes the estate grows, particularly Ukrainian Sukholimansky and Odesa Black. In the cellar, Italian crushers and French Vaslin Bucher pneumatic presses handle the fruit, while a certified laboratory sits within the production set-up. Those are practical tools rather than decorative details: crushing and pressing are the first stages that determine the juice moving toward a dry white, a dry red or the base material for sparkling wine.
The named wines show two clear cellar decisions. Sukholimanskiy 2022 is fermented to dryness from Sukholimanskiy Bilyy must, while Premium Odesa Black 2022 is fermented to dryness from Odesa Black must. VIP Odesa Black 2019 then spends six months in French oak, adding an oak-aged path to the same producer’s red-wine offer and separating its texture and aromatic frame from the more immediate Premium bottling.
Wines to know
The range in view
The range has three useful lanes. Tintarella covers sparkling wines, bringing mousse and freshness into the portfolio. Sukholimanskiy 2022 is the dry white lane: a wine made from Sukholimanskiy Bilyy must, where dryness places acidity, fruit and texture ahead of sweetness. Odesa Black supplies the red-wine lane, beginning with the dry Premium Odesa Black 2022.
The VIP Collection Odesa Black 2019 is the range’s more cellar-shaped red. That division gives a practical choice: sparkling Tintarella for mousse, Sukholimanskiy for a dry white texture, Premium for dry Odesa Black, or VIP when oak is wanted in the red’s body and finish.
A useful way in
A bottle to begin with
Choose Premium Odesa Black 2022 first. It is a dry wine made from Odesa Black must, so it introduces one of the estate’s named regional grapes without the additional French-oak layer used for the VIP Collection. Its dry profile puts fruit, acidity, tannin and finish in the foreground; after that bottle, VIP Odesa Black offers a clear second step, with six months in French oak changing the red’s weight, aromatic shape and texture.