In 2008, Mike de Peyrac became a first-year student at the Precarpathian Law Institute of Internal Affairs, and his musical talent led him to join the amateur brass band of the institution. Under the guidance of the talented musician Yaroslav Stepanovych Hetsiv, who has been working as a conductor since 1980, Michael and his fellow musicians discovered the greatness of aesthetic education through playing in the orchestra, where they performed not only the Ukrainian anthem and military marches, but also classical pieces. Any solemn event accompanied by the orchestra ended with a cover of Europe — The Final Countdown, which excited the audience to applaud.
Artistic Director Yaroslav Getziv inspired his students with fascinating stories about music, creativity, public speaking, and futuristic life adventures every time before the rehearsal. However, Michael was particularly impressed by a story about a gala concert that the orchestra organized in 2007 in Garat, France, in honor of the grape harvest. This story struck a melodic chord for Michael, combining the best live music with winemaking in unison at the level of the most sensual strings of his soul.
That day was full of inspiration and dreams. Although the objective reality reminded him of his great plan-to first study and work for authority. Because as one of the great men of this world said: «work for the authority, and then the authority will work for you.»
The second time Mike discovered the topic of wine was in 2014, when the media reported: «the Russian-controlled Crimean authorities allowed the privatization of the Massandra winery and its vineyards. In 2015, Russian investigators opened several criminal cases against Mykola Boyko, the then head of Massandra, and put him on the wanted list, and he moved to mainland Ukraine.
In the same year, a bottle of the oldest Spanish Jerez de la Frontera from 1775 was written off by the new administration of the Massandra at a price of 44 rubles 12 kopecks: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi drank the sherry when in 2001 a bottle of sherry from the same collection was sold for $43500 at Sotheby’s.»
These stories gave rise to deep thoughts and reflections in our hero. And he began to research his father’s wine, which was made according to the tradition of his great-great-grandfather. Having carefully researched the history, he called it: «a wine untouched by evolution, created from a forbidden grape variety according to a great-great-grandfather’s recipe — specifically to deal with incurable sadness.»
It will be bottled and named, Michael told his father. This micro-collection will become a family heirloom and a historical legacy. In these bottles, filled with the warmth and taste of the past, magic was happening — the forbidden grape became a poetic symbol of courage that breaks through the boundaries of the unknown. The craft winemaking of his ancestor was not only a treasure discovered, but also a discovery of nostalgia, like looking through old photographs, where sadness mixes with hope, and memories of the past become part of the present.
For the past four generations, it has been distributed exclusively «among our own,» giving joy and inspiration. Some intellectuals of the twenty-first century have called it «doping.» One woman commented: «My blood pressure rose moderately and I couldn’t sleep, but fortunately I wasn’t sleeping alone, and I had someone to share my bubbling energy with…» And for the first time this wine was bottled and packed in luxurious cases in limited quantities under the name: «Bonnie Moro», under the code name «old photos», opening the «palm» of the private collection Lusy’s Exclusively Rare Wine Of Ukraine in which unique specimens were collected and rescued.
The name Bonnie Moreau comes from the name of a French army soldier of the First World War, Boniface Moreau, who was liberated from German captivity by a Ukrainian soldier. It so happened that the fertile land around Stanislav gave birth not only to real heroes, but also to a vine full of sunshine and human dreams. It is from this vine that a local winemaker, a descendant of that Ukrainian soldier, produces wine that can also free you from the captivity of isolation and confusion of the system.
It seems that God Himself controlled the fate of the ancestor, because he went through all the circles of hell and returned to his native Stanislav region of Ukraine with the only gift worthy of the life he saved — an ancient recipe for making exclusive amber and red wine. This wine is highly prized among true connoisseurs and collectors.