Imagine starting up a wine business where there is a 400-year history of viticulture but vineyard land can cost as little as $1,160 a hectare, or $470 an acre!
This is the recently renascent wine country of Russia, based mainly in the Rostov and Krasnodar regions (see picture of the latter in winter from www.russiawines.com, and also see this online map from the World Atlas of Wine, using the + sign to zoom in on these two regions), although of course some of Georgia's wine regions, much older than Russia's, are now under Russian control. Apparently Riesling may have a bright future here, and local grape varieties include such treasures as Krasnostop and Sibirkovy.
I learnt all this fascinating stuff from an article just published by Meiniger's Wine Business International. I thoroughly recommend anyone as curious as I am about (re)emerging wine regions to read it.