Andrew Jefford tastes 2022 Prince Alexandre Chavchavadze Tsinandali Estate Kakhetian Blend Qvevri.

Why do we do it? Why do we rip white grape juice away from the protective skin in which it comes into being? What leads us to carry out this act of separation?

It is, like the sieving and milling of flour or the polishing of rice, a refinement. We’ve come to consider the skins of white grapes mere husks. We’re able to produce a translucent wine of alluring color by forcing white grapes up against a wall, crushing and pressing the juice from them, then throwing those skins quickly away. The result is, it’s true, a wine through which light can cascade. Gold initially; more silver of late. We’re now so refined in our refining that we can abolish color altogether. We drink transparent wines barely haunted by the silver of steel—the vessel in which they often come into being. We pour glassy wines from our glass bottles. 

That refinement has its counterpart in aroma and flavor: the abstraction of fruit alone, and its preservation (initially by the gas of ferment, now by exotic gassy cousins) from the homogenizing fangs of oxidation. This was not a foolish maneuver, since it opened the door on a world previously inaccessible and perhaps undreamed of, a world of extraordinary diversity and delight. It also helped us see the marrowy core of wine itself: vinosity, stripped bare; a play of sinew, revealed to the anatomist’s curious gaze. Being human, we carried on tinkering—with wooden barrels of all ages and sizes, which gave us the chance to recruit new flavory elements for our orphan fruit. We learned, too, to trap bubbles inside wine and feel foam, not tannin, on our tongues. And so on and so forth… to the wine world of today, with which we’re all so familiar.

Creating skinless white wines was a strange thing to do, all the same. Stranger still, we forgot the alternative: We forgot the whole-grape original.

Every great red wine—from the palest Chambolle, to the densest Pomerol or Pauillac—is whole-grape wine. We tend not to make skinless wines from red grapes—except when we have bubbles in mind. (That’s strange, too. And sure enough, wine’s vanguard is now exploring the possibilities of unbubbly blanc de noirs, of skinless reds.)

Almost all white wines, by contrast, are skinless wines. What happened to our whole-grape whites? That was the way wine began, red and white alike: trodden bunches, set to ferment in a stone tank. 

Amber glory from a qvevri

Georgia never forgot. Perhaps because the thread of memory goes back further here than (so far as we know) anywhere else: some 8,000 years. Remarkable endurance, given Georgia’s history: a long trauma of invasions, tyrannies, massacres, and enslavement, broken by short and breathless interludes of independence and cohesion. Romans, Mongols, Persians, Turks, and Russians—all repeatedly tussled for domination of the central Caucasus; Tbilisi’s dawn streets often echoed to the muezzin’s call. Tbilisi’s dusk streets now echo to the cries of fiercely repressed demonstrations, as its students and citizens attempt to push back against new Russian domination, forced on them by an illegitimate government.

Yet whole-grape white wine—thus amber in color—is still made here, as it always has been, using entire berries, sometimes clutching their stems in whole clusters, fermenting in buried clay vessels called qvevris. 

Here’s how this whole-grape white wine is made. Grapes of four different indigenous Kakheti varieties (Rkatsiteli, Mstvane Kakhuri, Khikhvi, and Kisi) are double-sorted, destemmed, and co-fermented in two separate 1,500-liter buried qvevri for three weeks (with punch-downs three times a day; both qvevri are part-filled at this point). When fermentation and the malolactic are complete, the wine from one qvevri is transferred to the other, which is now fully filled and sealed for maturation with the remaining skins. There it remains for six months, undisturbed (apart from a small monthly sample for laboratory testing). At the end of that aging period, the qvevri is unsealed and the now bright and stable wine is removed from skins and sediment, cold-stabilized, and lightly filtered before bottling. 

It’s a light amber in color: autumn light. Aromatically, it’s clean, refined, calm, layered, and harmonious. Not entirely fruitless: apricots and persimmons, recollected, like a childhood memory. Whole-grape whites bring you an aromatic landscape and not just the glistening bunch; on the palate they seem to bring protein, plant matter, and lignin. Their joy often lies in trembling ripeness, shawled in flavory tannins, informed by fermentative richness, and running on a fuel of transformed fruit; so here. The taste of this wine is as supple as it is full, generously contoured, unfolding amply, its acids glowing in sunset style, nourishing to the last. A wine to eat, as well as drink. Nothing crabby; nothing drying; nothing rank. Complete wine from whole fruit.

Now the prison door lies open. Whole-grape whites—orange, amber—are out on the hills once more. Beyond Georgia, a few visionaries (like the Gravner and Radikon families) led the way; the curious on every continent now follow. More important, you and I are accommodating our mouths to the new language, the new beauty of these new yet ancient wines. Eventually, our finest red wines will face amber brides across the dinner table. Our table pleasure will be richer for this; our digestions will thank us. This is not a battle: Skinless white wines have brought us much joy; they will continue to do so. But there is no substitute for the satisfaction of the whole grape, chased through its fermentative metamorphosis to amber glory. Thanks, Georgia. 

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The Kakheti region has so far attracted most attention to modern Georgian wine, but could the distinctive wines made in around the capital Tbilisi in Kartli be the country’s next big thing?

Visitors to the Caucasian country of Georgia—and especially those who are wine devotees—typically spend a few days in its bustling capital, Tbilisi, and then head eastward over the mountains for Kakheti. This powerhouse region is home to the amber (or orange) wines of extended skin contact, and it is where 70% of the country’s wine is produced. Most visitors have no clue that Tbilisi itself is in the center of a distinctive wine region: Kartli. 

Known to classical authors as “Iberia,” Kartli was a separate kingdom from antiquity through to the 18th century, and it is now poised to rival its neighbor to the east in quality and accessibility. Yes, there are vines growing in the capital city, and plenty of people have little wine cellars (known as maranis) in their apartments, but it’s a short drive outside the city that the real action is taking place. Whether one heads north or south from Tbilisi, vineyards and serious wineries are less than an hour away. To the north, one finds the Ateni Gorge, Kartli’s first appellation (and Georgia’s only appellation for sparkling wine). To the south, the Stone Age settlement of Gadachrili Gora is testament to Georgia’s claim of being the birthplace of wine; it is there that archeologists unearthed clay shards and pottery with the residue of grapes and wine in the new protected denomination of origin (PDO) of Bolnisi. As Niko Chochishvili of Kapistoni proudly notes, “Kartli is covered with different terroirs that we are only just beginning to understand.”

The Likhi mountain range (below) walls Kartli off from the region of Imereti to its west, and it blocks the humid air coming from the Black Sea, reducing the risk of fungal diseases. To the east, the Iori River and the Tsiv-Gombori mountain range divide it from Kakheti, keeping that region’s warmer air and hail-prone climate at bay. Kartli itself is divided into two main regions: Shida (Inner) Kartli is north of Tbilisi and includes the municipalities of Mtskheta, Gori, and Dzalisa, a Roman settlement from the 4th to the 1st centuries bce. Kvemo (Lower) Kartli, to the south, spans the lower basin of the Mtkvari River. Here we find the historic wine town of Bolnisi and the ancient settlement of Dmanisi, home to a 1.8-million-year-old hominid site.

Niko and I drive around Kartli exploring tiny family vineyard plots tucked within rolling hills or sloping down riverbanks. He spreads his arms wide: “Everywhere you look, there used to be vineyards. There were also a couple of big state cooperatives in Kartli, where grapes from all over were ‘processed’ when Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union.” Two Soviet-era “wine factories” outside Tbilisi still operate, offering a unique view of 20th-century mass production. “The Soviets ripped up a lot of vineyards and planted potatoes and vegetables,” Niko adds. “But some people were emotionally attached to their plots and kept some of these old vines or replanted with local varieties when Georgia became independent again in 1991.”

Niko knows the vineyards like the back of his hand. He’s now retired from the military, but during his service he scoured the region time and again because it borders southern Russia; a Russian military base is visible just a few kilometers from one of his vineyards. Plenty of other vineyards are proximate to Tskhinvali, historically a Georgian (and multicultural) town that has been occupied by Russia since the war in 2008. Intrepid travelers be advised: Following the conflict, the Russians erected numerous border-crossing warning signs in Georgian territory prohibiting entry. To go beyond these signs invites arrest—or worse.

Kartli’s terroirs are quite diverse. Apart from differing soils, vineyard plots sit at different altitudes—but a key element in Kartli is sun exposure. The best vineyard sites, Niko notes, tend to be south-facing slopes not far from the rivers, so they enjoy optimal exposure and favorable air flow, yielding wines with an elegant structure and a vibrant central nervous system. Kartli wines tend to be naturally fresh middleweight wines, with moderate alcohol levels and often with a fine strand of minerality. Niko’s own Kapistoni Shavkapito—a fresh red wine with delicate tannins and soft, dark-berried fruits—pairs perfectly with the classic mtsvadi—pork skewers grilled over a bed of dried grapevine cuttings. His Asuretuli Shavi, another local red variety named for the village of Asureti, is more firmly structured, with higher acidity and crispy tannins transporting a bouquet of violets, dark berries, and cassis to the palate.

“For years, I’ve been saying Kartli will be the next big thing,” says Giorgi (Goga) Tevzadze of Tevza Winery. “People enjoy these lighter, fresher wines with bright flavors.” Goga has a broad background in the wine business, having worked on big projects in Kakheti and spent two years in graduate studies with Roger Boulton of UC Davis. As well as his small family winery, inspired by his California experience, he started Crush 525, Georgia’s first custom-crush operation.

Northwest of Tbilisi, after the highway feeds into village roads, and the village roads segue into dirt pathways, individual plots dot the steep hillsides. In the tiny 11th-century village of Ateni, Giorgi Revazashvili tends terraced mounds of local varieties—the white Goruli Mtsvane and Chinebuli, plus the red Tavkveri—some planted by his grandfather, who taught him about grape growing and winemaking. A nippy breeze wafts through the pergola-trained vines, each around 5–6ft (1.5–1.8m) tall. His tiny, rudimentary marani, tucked into the mountainside, is an earthen warren, worlds removed from the modernizing capital. Happy up on the hillside, Giorgi also seems a step detached from the world, his mind floating on a different wavelength. As with many Georgians, his Christian faith is a significant part of his identity, and wine’s symbolism touches him deeply. Asked why he became a winemaker, he responds, “It brings me closer to the Divine.”

Kartli: Distinctive traditions and the search for terroir 

As well as having different growing conditions and different grape varieties, winemaking practices in Kartli also differ from those in Kakheti. Most notable is a tradition for less skin contact. “Our tradition was 80/20,” Giorgi notes. “We used 80% juice, 20% skins and stems, and only for a few months. Of course, it depended on the vintage, whether it would be for one month or three, but not as long as in Kakheti.” Similarly at Samtavisi Marani, named for the local village: “Our tradition was 80% juice and 20% crushed grapes,” says Mamuka Kikvadze.

Both Giorgi and Mamuka are members of the Natural Wine Association (NWA), an active Georgian group of family winemakers committed to non-interventionist grape-growing and wine-producing methods. Like many in the association, they are not trained winemakers. They rely on advice from their forebears, often farming their family plots. For these winemakers, strict adherence to the tradition is worth the risk that excessive volatility, ethyl acetate, or a bit of mousiness may appear in their wines. Mamuka, unlike some of his compatriots in the NWA, doesn’t have relatives upon whom he can rely for vines or advice, but he channels the past in other ways. He recently acquired a new property that has been fallow and pesticide- and herbicide-free for many years. Even if Mamuka isn’t working with family land and know-how, his “vineyard manager was the head of the local collective farm decades back, so he knows these lands, how they were farmed, and how they should be cared for.”

Another unique Kartli winemaking technique is fermenting white wines on the skins (and perhaps a small proportion of stems) of black grapes. This technique is mostly associated with the village of Khidistavi, where the white Goruli Mtsvane and Chinuri grapes ferment on red Tavkveri skins. At Samtavisi, Mamuka is fermenting Chinuri on Shavkapito stems. “This is my rosé experiment,” he says with a wink. In the past, he’s used 25% skins, but for the 2023 vintage he used only 10%; early qvevri samples suggest a vivacious wine with notes of pink grapefruit, hints of red berries, and a light, mineral energy. 

Château Mukhrani is a completely different enterprise, one of Georgia’s midsized and thoroughly professional wineries, consistently producing some of Kartli’s top wines. From the 19th century onward, Georgia has welcomed French know-how and winemaking techniques, and Mukhrani is the current embodiment of this tradition. Its CEO and chief winemaker, German-born and educated Patrick Honnef, worked with Stéphane Derenoncourt in Bordeaux. Honnef still looks after his own small vineyard in the Castillon Côtes de Bordeaux, but in Georgia he is one of the few actively searching for terroir. “We’re trying to understand this land and these varieties, trying to see what they both can do,” he says. He is “looking for the mineral thread, the tension,” in the white varieties and how they express themselves differently in different soils and through different vinification techniques. Honnef brings a thoroughly Western analytic framework to Georgia, though his team is thoroughly Georgian. “Our situation in Kartli is very different from the conditions in Kakheti,” he says. “It is cooler. Our season is behind Kakheti’s, both in the spring and at harvest. And the soils are lighter. When I was invited to work in Georgia, what sealed the deal for me was a flight over the property. I could see the clay/sandy soils around the winery, then the slopes of limestone in [the village of] Mukhrani. I thought, ‘Wow—I can really do something here.’”

The professionals who wrote of Georgian vineyards in the 19th and 20th centuries left a lot about Kartli unexplained. Lacking much historical guidance, Honnef is doggedly trying to understand the Kartli varieties, as well as others that might work in the Mukhrani vineyards—such as Ojaleshi, a variety associated with the western region of Samegrelo. “We work every year to bring full expression of our varieties and vineyards. Which varieties, in which vintages and vineyards, are best suited for stainless steel? For cask? For qvevri? For concrete egg? These are the questions we are asking.” Niko Chochishvili of Kapistoni, who vinifies exclusively in qvevri, agrees that there are still gaps in our knowledge of the region: “In Soviet times, if they weren’t planting vegetables, the grapes were for mass-produced sparkling wines, so it’s up to us now to understand how to produce serious wine here.”

Most of the grapes grown in Kartli in the past century were indeed destined for the off-dry (and often off-tasting) “Soviet Champagne.” But today, in Bastien Warskotte’s hands at Ori Marani, they are being turned into serious fizz. Born and trained in Reims, Bastien made wine in France, South Africa, Canada, and elsewhere around the world before falling in love with a Georgian woman. Ori Marani, in the village of Igoeti, was their first “offspring.” 

While spending time with Bastien, we leave the paved road behind; the car trundles up a twisted, winding path to his house and cellar, perched high on the hillside. He dashes around his cellar pulling samples from his barrels filled with different grapes from all over Georgia. “You know Champagne,” he laughs. “We blend.” As he learns how to make wines from these Georgian varieties, he’s also learning the ones he prefers and the specific areas where they grow. The base wines can be fermented in tank, barrel, or qvevri, then he assembles the blends and determines how long the wines should age on the lees. All of the Ori Marani wines have the finesse and brioche-like flavors of a Champagne, but the Georgian grapes impart wisps of musk, earth, and a greater breadth. 

Many contend that it really was Iago Bitarishvili who put Kartli—and specifically his own village of Chardakhi—on the world wine map. He has a ready laugh, but underneath lies no shortage of determination. “I’m motivated by the goals I set for myself. To be the first to produce bottled wine, when everyone used jugs; to grow organically; to make natural wine; to export my wines—and so on.” Iago is primarily focused on the local Chinuri variety, which he produces in qvevri, some with skins and some with no skin contact. “Without skins, it is trickier. Since I don’t add commercial yeast, we need the yeast on the skins for the fermentation. So, in some years the no-skin-contact wine has a little sweetness.” Regardless, his Chinuri wines have the telltale aromas and flavors of quince. One of the originators of the Natural Wine Association and the New Wine Festival (an annual springtime event where new vintages are presented), Iago has become so successful that his tiny production is now strictly allocated.

Iago has been trying to increase production slowly, but conditions haven’t been conducive. First, the weather: The first winter after he planted a new vineyard, frost killed 80% of the vines. Second, climate change has made conditions more challenging: “It never snows anymore,” he says. In a recent vintage, he had to carry water from the river below to help some vines suffering from excessive water stress. And third, the legacy of unscrupulous dealing: Most of the grapes he bought weren’t even the Chinuri he had ordered but hybrids and other table grapes he had to grub up.

Growing professionalism and recognition

Moving south from Shida Kartli and Tbilisi into Kvemo Kartli, it’s a rough-and-tumble drive down to Bolnisi, passing the scrappy Azerbaijani plumbing- and construction-supply shops strung along the roadway. In medieval times, Georgian, Armenian, and Arab peoples populated the area, but the local character changed in the 19th century, when the Russian imperial government welcomed Swabian settlers fleeing religious persecution; they renamed Bolnisi as Katharinenfeld. (The name reverted to Bolnisi in 1943.) Even though most of the Swabian Germans were forcibly relocated to Siberia during World War II, their imprint remains, notably in the small cellars in their homes and the large wooden vats they used for winemaking.

One of Georgia’s newer PDOs, the Bolnisi appellation lies on both sides of the Mashavera River at altitudes between 1,800 and 2,600ft (550–800m). The western part of the appellation sits on the volcanic Javakheti Plateau. Farther east, the terrain has volcanic rocks, limestone, and sandstone; alluvial soil predominates as one approaches the river. Regardless of soil type, “It’s the winds from two different canyons that really mark the wines and highlight their aromatic profiles,” says the avuncular Guram Avqopashvili, the unofficial ambassador for the family wineries of the area. Most of the vineyards are on the right bank of the Mashavera; the steep vineyards in the villages of Khatissopeli (right bank) and Ratevani (left bank) are already noted as leading sites of the appellation. 

“We’re mostly enthusiasts,” acknowledges Guram, who has a small winery with his brother Giorgi (Brothers’ Cellar). “But we think we have one of the most dynamic regions in Georgia, with 13 distinct terroirs. Ten years ago, we had only a handful of wineries and lots of abandoned vineyard terraces, but today we have dozens of small family wineries making wines from Kartli’s indigenous varieties, such as Danakharuli, Shavkapito, and Tavkveri. Plus, we have influences from other Georgian regions. Apart from the Germans, in the 1990s many Svans [from Svaneti, in Georgia’s mountainous northwest] relocated here, bringing their own grape varieties (such as the red Mujuretuli) and their distinctive stone towers, reminiscent of those in Tuscany’s San Gimignano.”

This growth has also been marked by a shift toward more professionalism. “Many Georgians think that they know how to make wine just because they are Georgian,” Niko says wryly. Father Grigor of Bolnisi’s Zedashe Monastery says, “We realized that if we wanted to sell our wines, we had to study winemaking, so the monks enrolled in correspondence courses.” Wines previously fit only for sacramental and symbolic use now have purity and verve. At Shalos Cellar, Tornike Sherazadishvili pursued university studies in wine growing to do right by his grandfather’s vineyard. “I use skin contact not just because it’s our tradition; I know that when I get pear flavors in the skins, I’m going to make a wine that tastes like the totality of the fruit.” 

RMG, a local mining company, has underwritten regional development in Bolnisi, including a must-visit local museum displaying artifacts uncovered through their excavations, tracing Bolnisi’s history and culture from prehistory to the present day. In a country that often has multiple “wine festivals” a month, RMG also supports Bolnisi’s own wine festivals and promotional activities. Traditional music fills the air, and dancers enliven the stage as consumers and producers mill about, sampling the latest wines and local snacks like churchkhela (walnuts or hazelnuts dipped in a mix of grape juice and flour, then dried—the original energy bar carried by soldiers and mountaineers) or nemtsuri, a hard, smoked jerky in the German tradition, that pairs beautifully with the red wines.

Driving northwest back toward Tbilisi, we encounter Asureti, another village settled by the Germans. From the hill of Beka Gotsadze’s vineyards across the Asuretiskhevi River gorge, we can see the stone carapace of a Swabian winery. In what is otherwise a deserted area with abandoned vineyards and scrubland, Beka (a former architect before he pivoted to winemaking) planted 15 different indigenous varieties from both eastern and western Georgia in volcanic, heavy clay-loam soils pocked with basalt pebbles and stones. His vineyard is now Demeter-certified, and he adheres firmly to the “natural” philosophy. This has not restricted Beka’s creativity, however. Drawing on his experience of developing heating systems for buildings, he wraps radiant heating tubes around his qvevri. He pumps in cold water to regulate fermentation temperature; as the water itself warms, it fills his swimming pool. Reversing the cycle with warm water encourages the malolactic conversion. 

“What’s old always becomes new again,” Niko observes. Preserved primarily through oral tradition and now filtered through a modern sensibility, Kartli’s winemaking past is poised to cultivate some of Georgia’s very finest wines. Producers as different as Chochishvili, Honnef, and Kikvadze are determined to differentiate their wines from those of their neighbors to the east in Kakheti—lighter and more nimble, speaking of place and variety. Kartli’s breakout moment is coming soon, driven by the energy and drive of its winemakers. Or perhaps it’s already here… 

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Georgian wine is best known for the qvevri clay pots used by some of its most celebrated producers. But the array of fascinating, utterly distinctive indigenous Georgian grape varieties also deserve much wider renown, says Jim Clarke.

Thanks to local geography, Georgia has been relatively isolated for millennia—a condition that has lent many unique traits to its wines. The one most apparent to wine drinkers, especially those who appreciate white wines, are the qvevri—clay amphora, set into the earth, wherein Georgians have traditionally fermented their wines. White wines as well as reds are fermented on their skins, creating deeply colored “amber” wines with a depth of flavor and tannins, even in the whites. As a technique, however, it largely obscures another unique aspect of the country’s vinous story: the grapes.

“I call the qvevri the great equalizer,” says Lisa Granik, a Master of Wine and author of The Wines of Georgia. “The wines taste not of the qvevri per se, but of the qvevri process, rather than using the qvevri to enhance the characteristics of the grape, or even the grape in its terroir.” Granik compares it to the way new oak barrels can overwhelm the character of a grape in conventional Western winemaking.

525 Georgian grape varieties

Thanks again to the country’s isolation, there are an estimated 525 indigenous Georgian grape varieties, so there is a great deal that could be explored. Many, however, are more often found in surveys than bottles. Diversity shrank post-phylloxera, a process that only accelerated during the Soviet period; disease resistance and yields became the priority, largely destined at the time for sparkling and semi-sweet wines. Today about 75 percent of the vineyards are planted to white grapes, and most of that is Rkatsiteli. Saperavi dominates among the reds, and both are particularly prevalent in the hotter, eastern regions of Kakheti and Kartli, which are much more densely planted than the regions closer to the Black Sea. 

But other varieties persisted in family vineyards and out-of-the-way corners, and several programs, perhaps most notably the LEPL Scientific Research Centre of Agriculture in Jighuara, are working to propagate a greater diversity of vines. Granik says the urge to recover and expand the varieties planted stems from an interest in biodiversity as well as an expanded range of offerings. 

Beyond the qvevri, the names of Georgian grape varieties stand in the way of greater recognition abroad, and not just because of their extraordinary density of consonants. Certain names recur in different variations across the country. There are, for example, six different varieties of Mstvane, none related to each other, and each named for the region where it was first recognized. “At this stage,” says Rezi Tsetskhladze of Vazisubani Estate, “the varieties most known in America are the ones most planted in Georgia: Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Kisi, Khikhvi, and Saperavi from eastern Georgia, and Tsolikouri and Tsitska from Western Georgia.” 

Field blends would have been typical for most small, family producers, and certain combinations are becoming typical: Rkatsiteli and Mstvane, or Tsitska and Tsolikouri, for example. So while many of the wines reaching export markets are varietally labeled, wine drinkers exploring more closely will encounter a number of blends that also make it harder to isolate and understand the character of individual varieties.

“For me, Kakhuri Mtsvane [Mtsvane from Kakheti] is an exciting grape variety,” Tsetskhladze says. “It has an outstanding potential to adapt to different winemaking technologies, such as white winemaking technology and skin contact for amber wine. It gives aromatic, structured and full wines. It has a very good aging potential.”

Despite their almost total domination of exports, qvevri wines make up only five percent of Georgia’s wine production, so the chance to explore the character of these grapes is out there. Among the qvevri wines, some varieties show themselves more forcefully than others. 

“Rkatsiteli is super malleable because it’s subtle,” says Christy Canterbury, Master of Wine and Georgian Wine Ambassador in the U.S. “It’s not aromatically dynamic, so the qvevri does a lot to give it texture, aroma, color, etc. It’s like Chardonnay in that it’s more susceptible to the whims of the winemaker. Whereas Kisi says, ‘you’re not messing with me.’ It retains its identity, it’s exotic—much more tropical, with riper flavors that stand up to qvevri a little bit more. And then Mtsvane has citrus and herbal notes on top and a similar body to Rkatsiteli.”

Among reds, as a teinturier grape Saperavi makes a powerful, dark, tannic wine, but some other varieties yield much different styles of wine. “Saperavi is mostly found in Kakheti and Kartli,” Canterbury says, “but once you get west of Kartli you tend to get varieties that do better in cooler and wetter environments.” Among these Canterbury singles out Aleksandrouli and Aladasturi, comparing them to pale, cool-climate Pinot Noir, and then for contrast, Delchavi “which is amped up on everything: dense, chunky, gamey, chewy.”

Ancient beginnings

Even if these are still unfamiliar names, Georgia’s indigenous varieties received some extra attention in March when Science magazine published a study revealing that, although Georgia has been archaeologically associated with the earliest beginnings of winemaking, the Caucasus region shares the birth of winegrapes in the form of Vitis vinifera with the Levant. 

Furthermore, thanks to Georgia’s isolation, the latter seems to be the source of the world’s most planted grape varieties—all the familiar names we know from France, Italy, and so forth. “That means the grape varieties that were in the Caucasus stayed there,” Granik says. “And that to me is more interesting, because it means these varieties are ancient, and have adapted and developed to their very different terroirs. And that just highlights their uniqueness, right?”

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Chakapuli: An iconic dish

The pull of orange wines

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Beyond the romance: A practical and portable guide to Georgia in the round

If there’s a strain of romanticism in the current Western infatuation with Georgian wine, it’s entirely forgivable. Whether it’s the unfathomably ancient (8,000-year) history of winemaking, the 520-odd indigenous grape varieties, or the use of that most fashionable new-old vessel, the qvevri, by winemakers with the tiniest of productions—not to mention the wider context of a naturally beautiful country with a thriving, distinctive, and hitherto overlooked cultural and gastronomic tradition— there is a lot to get romantic about.

Of the flurry of recent books about the country’s wine and food, Carla Capalbo’s Tasting Georgia: A Wine and Food Journey in the Caucasus and Alice Feiring’s For the Love of Wine: My Odyssey Through the World’s Most Ancient Wine Culture are perhaps the best known, and neither shies away from sharing and celebrating the intoxication that most visitors feel—that strange combination of, in Capalbo’s words, the “exotic and the familiar.”

Miquel Hudin and Daria Kholodilina’s mission in Georgia: A Guide to the Cradle of Wine is rather more prosaic. While the odd orientalist flourish is allowed (not least in such tourist-book clichés as the crazy taxi driver and the “city of contrasts”), the book’s primary purpose, as its title suggests, is to get the facts down with, for the most part, straightforward and digestible prose, simple maps, and clean, user-friendly presentation.

In what is now the standard wine-guide style, the first half of the book is devoted to setting out the generalities of Georgian wine, with succinct introductions to its history— from ancient and Biblical times, to the resurgence in the 2000s of the kvevri (the authors prefer to use this spelling rather than the more widely used qvevri since the latter is based on a mistaken translation of the Georgian letter “?”), a development that the authors attribute to a general rise in the quality of home winemaking thanks to the “squalid state” of commercial Georgian wine in the post-Soviet era. The most significant grape varieties are each given their page or half-page due with an accompanying photo, and there’s an informative discussion of the qvevri method (along with a pleasingly tart rebuttal of the idea that the qvevri is synonymous with natural wine).

A brief discussion of the Georgian table leads us into the real meat of the book: the producer profiles, arranged by region. While these vary in quality (perhaps a reflection of the book’s dual authorship) and sometimes feel a little dashed off (there’s an irritating habit of using only the protagonists’ first names in some entries), there’s a heartening commitment to covering the full breadth of the Georgian scene. Large commercial wineries such as the 4-million-bottle-a-year Georgian Wines & Spirits Company are given space alongside the rare mid-sized outfits and, of course, the various luminaries of the qvevri vanguard.

Even these down-to-earth authors concede the latter’s outsize importance in shaping contemporary attitudes to Georgian wine, despite their being responsible for a mere 1–2 percent of its annual production. But if Hudin and Kholodilina can’t resist the romance entirely, their book is above all a useful, practical, and portable guide for those looking to experience it firsthand.

Published by Vinologue; $29 / £22

The post Book Review: <em>Georgia: A Guide to the Cradle of Wine</em> by Miquel Hudin and Daria Kholodilina appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.

This is a wine book with a difference. It encompasses everything you might wish to know about traditional*  eorgianviniculture but includes so much more: history, geography, architecture, tourism, ceramics—and food, food, food.

The author (let’s call her Carla) has apparently taken a vow to eat and drink her way from one end of the land to another, taking in, as she travels through the various regions, the dramatic, sometimes awesome landscape, the ancient religious buildings and other monuments of interest, and the humble but colorful homes of the people, for whom she displays heartfelt feeling.

And who could resist accompanying her, enticed as one might well be by the always professional-standard and occasionally stunning photographs, taken by Carla herself, that adorn almost every page. (There are 390 of them, to be precise, in a book of 464 pages.)

Early in the book we are given a brief history of the country and its wine production, an essential consideration here being  that Georgia— with its proximity to Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey, not to mention the Black Sea—has  hroughout its history stood at a crossroads for thirsty, hungry marauding hordes. Although it’s impossible to say with  precision how long winemaking has been practiced in Georgia, historians have estimated around 8,000 years, citing as evidence certain relics containing fossilized grape pips, tannins, and tartaric residues.

Many changes have taken place in the course of time, including a gradual switch from tree-training to training on posts, and the evolution of several hundred grape varieties of Vitis vinifera from Vitis silvestris, significant numbers of which are threatened with extinction in these industrial times.

Buried treasure
An illuminating section of the book from an enological point of view is that entitled “How to Make Wine in Qvevri.”

“Qvevri,” we are informed by John Wurdeman of Pheasant’s Tears winery, “means ‘that which is buried.’ Once it’s in the ground, the clay vessel is able to harness seasonal temperature shifts to  help form the wine. Autumn’s warmth spurs spontaneous fermentation, while winter’s chill helps the wine stabilize.

A wine may stay on the skins for varying lengths of time but it needs to spend at least nine months with its ‘mother.’ This allows the wine to stabilize, after which it can be ‘put on its feet’ and stand alone in a fresh qvevri away from the lees.”

It also allows producers to reduce to a minimum the use of sulfur dioxide— sometimes, indeed, eliminating its use altogether. To complete the profile of these “natural” wines, no chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides are used in the vineyard.

After the introduction to wine comes that to food. One rapidly understands that food, and food/wine pairing, plus rituals associated with eating such as the supra or feast and the practice of toasting or ramada, is as near to the hearts of

Georgians as religion (Eastern Orthodox) or national pride (for example, in the fact that, throughout the countless invasions, persecutions, and occupations, they have retained their ancient ways, together with their language and their alphabet). Carla provides plenty of photographic proof of this gastronomic tradition, some of which will have you drooling to join in. Indeed, she expounds at length on typical ingredients (preferably fresh and local) and how to prepare a Georgian meal.

Wider than wine
The heart of the book is the “food and  wine journey in the Caucasus.” She divides the country into ten “journeys” and, an intrepid wanderer from way back, has persuaded friends and advisors/translators to lead her into the most obscure nooks  nd crannies where the religion of food and wine prevail. There are recipes galore, reflecting the nature and availability of local produce and the principle of freshness of materials, together with the importance of adhering strictly to the rules for any  given dish with what might seem to Western fusioneers excessive punctiliousness.

She begins with Tbilisi and surrounds, so that from the outset we know a bit of the capital’s local history, what visits to make, where to stay, shop, drink, and eat, and even a few tips/ recipes as to what to eat. The same format is used for the other nine journeys. The “Centre” or second district—Mtskheta and the Kartlis— is home to, among other things, an important viticultural institute called the Scientific-Research Centre of Agriculture, or Saguramo (after the town

where it is situated; cf Italy’s Rauscedo), where, in a 44ha (109-acre) vineyard, native vine varieties, some 437 of them, are propagated (including microvinification) and in some cases brought back from near extinction following the ravages of the Ottoman Empire, phylloxera, and the Soviet Union.

But it is the third journey, “East to Kakheti,” that turns out to be the most important, from the point of view of  wine, particularly qvevri wine. Carla comments, “Between visits to over ten wineries here—including Alaverdi’s historic monastery, where winemaking has taken place at least since 1011—we visit a qvevri maker, explore two of the country’s biggest food markets and travel to the distinctive towns of Telavi and Sighnaghi. Along the way are important cultural and historical sites—including the tomb of Saint Nino at Bodbe Monastery—and an extensive nature reserve on the border with Azerbaijan that is home to 150 species of bird.”

Such is the complexity and richness of the tapestry of words and pictures that is this book—thoroughly exploring, as it does, one of humanity’s most important wine zones within the context of an ancient, unique, multifaceted, and still thriving culture. If one had to pick the odd nit it might buzz around the fact that it’s a somewhat bulky tome—certainly not one for the pocket. I can imagine, too, anglophone readers complaining about the ubiquity of strange and difficult-topronounce names (of grapes, wines, foods, dishes, places, and so on).

But there are many more reasons to acquire this book than not—and it is certainly essential for anyone traveling in Georgia. And as I indicated above, it is so much more than a mere “Wines of…” or travel guide. Carla writes with real enthusiasm and passion—you just know she’s emotionally involved. There are books and books, as there are wines and wines. For me, this is no mere village wine. This is a premier cru.

* Early on, Carla specifies, “This book focuses on the ancient and distinctive Georgian tradition of making wine in the large terra-cotta vessels called qvevri. The so-called natural winemakers who are bottling wines made in this way— now more than 50—form only a tiny percentage of Georgia’s enormous wine output. Compared to the millions of bottles produced in steel tanks or wooden barrels by the large-scale commercial wineries that make up the bulk of Georgia’s export market—much of which goes to Russia and the Eastern Bloc countries—these qvevri winemakers produce only tens of thousands of bottles between them.”

Published by Interlink Publishing Group (US) / Pallas Athene Publishers (UK) $40 / £29.99

The post Book Review: Tasting Georgia: A Food and Wine Journey in the Caucasus by Carla Capalbo appeared first on World Of Fine Wine.