December 9th, 2009 | 
Author: Russian billionaire Eugene Shvidler had almost everything you could possibly imagine, however there was one thing missing in his life, that was until he bought a French vineyard in the Dordogne. Shvidler turned 45 earlier this year and held his birthday bash on the grounds of his 200 hectare vineyard.
He decided to buy a vineyard after he went on a wine tasting trip to France with friends in 2000, a year later he bought Château Thenac in the Bergerac region for a few million Euro. Shvidler is worth an estimated £1.5 billion and is ranked 334 in Forbes’s billionaire list, and is best friends and partners with Roman Abramovich. He works with Abramovich running the investment company, Millhouse and made his fortune in oil in the 1990′s.
What possibly could one buy a billionaire for his birthday? Well Abramovich turned up at his French 16th century manor house and vineyard, with a flock of twelve sheep. Shvidler said: “A friend of ours owns a place in Scotland, and when I went there I liked the sheep. They had a special shaped head.” The sheep have now settled in their new home at Château Thenac, tucked away in a field bordered by forest at the bottom of his vineyard. He intends on keeping them merely for pleasure, with no intention to breed them for food.
He looks after his vineyard himself and his goal is to produce a first-class wine that will rival anything neighbouring Bordeaux has to offer. So far the development of the first ever oligarch-approved wine is going very well for him. Last year 220,000 bottles were produced, many of which went straight into the cellars of the most fashionable restaurants and department stores in London and Paris. The 2006 Château Thenac Blanc Sec, or in English, a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes was chosen as the wine for last year’s Serpentine summer party. The Fleur du Perigord Rouge is served on Virgin Atlantic first-class flights, and the Parisian luxury food store Fauchon has just started stocking Z-Thenac, the very strong eau de vie made using the vineyard’s two hectares of plum orchards.
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