Georgia: New Trends & Ancient Traditions
If you‘ve not had the pleasure of visiting, it’s difficult to convey quite how much wine is ingrained in the culture of Georgia. Grapes and their alcoholic by-products are everywhere. Turn any corner in the smallest village or largest city and you will find a wine shop, a wine bar, qvevri, or vines.— Ellie Scott
If you ‘ve not had the pleasure of visiting, it’s difficult to convey quite how much wine is ingrained in the culture of Georgia. Grapes and their alcoholic by-products are everywhere. Turn any corner in the smallest village or largest city and you will find a wine shop, a wine bar, qvevri, or vines.
Vines grow over car ports for shade, above doorways for decoration, along gas pipes to disguise them. At monasteries, in gardens, on roadsides. The Georgian landscape is littered with qvevri - traditional clay fermentation pots - from those small enough to pick up, to those large enough to climb into.
In even the smallest café or restaurant, wine lists easily run over a page, and the offerings are 100% Georgian.
Wine is made in all regions of the country, and by everyone. Making wine for your family’s consumption over the year, with a little extra to take to church, is the norm. With the abundance of grapes and pervasiveness of winemaking knowledge, why wouldn’t you? A huge number of private houses have a marani, a traditional wine cellar with qvevri buried in the ground, but even those families without a marani often make wine.
After an oft-quoted unbroken 8000 vintages, it is understandable how fiercely and justifiably proud the Georgians are of their traditional winemaking techniques. The use of qvevri for fermentation and ageing; natural winemaking; minimal intervention; skin contact whites; amber or orange wines: these may seem on trend ideas in Western Europe but in Georgia it’s part of the cultural heritage, recognised as such by UNESCO.
In such a landscape it is perhaps unsurprising that there will always be innovators. New techniques are being experimented with particularly in sparkling wine, historically not as widely produced or consumed in Georgia as still wines.
At Shumi winery in Telavi they are making what they call ‘the first qvevri champagne’ - a traditional method sparkling from indigenous grapes. Two white varieties, Chinuri and Mtsvane, are picked slightly early to retain acidity. They are fermented in qvevri to produce the base wine, before being bottled, topped up with liqueur de tirage and aged on the lees. The bottles are riddled by hand on A-frames in the smaller cellar next to the traditional marani which holds the qvevri.
Shumi, which in ancient Georgian meant ‘the best wine’ also claims to have the first biodynamic vineyards in Georgia and is hoping to achieve certification by Demeter once they increase the percentage of their biodynamic vineyards from 40% to the necessary 50%.
At nearby Mtsvane Estate, they have grand plans to be the best sparkling wine producers in Georgia. Pet Nat might be the oldest method of making sparkling wine but it has only recently been adopted in Georgia. Mtsvane Estate Pet Nat is made from a blend of Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane white grapes, producing a dry sparkling with soft bubbles and some floral notes alongside citrus and pears. The limited production, all disgorged to order, has increased in the last couple of years to include two other blends of indigenous white grapes, and even a sparkling rosé Saperavi.
Further west, in the region of Kartli, Bastien Warskotte is combining his French winemaking knowledge with his wife Nino’s Georgian heritage. The name of their small venture, Ori Marani (Ori meaning ‘two’) is a nod to the two countries and their winemaking traditions. Originally from Champagne, Bastien is focused on producing traditional method sparkling wines with indigenous Georgian varieties, fermented and aged on the lees in either qvevri, oak barrels or both.
If a trip to Georgia isn't on the cards just yet, the good news is there are a growing number of specialist importers bringing the flavours of Georgia to the UK. The aptly named Taste of Georgia have an enormous selection of Georgian wines, including Shumi. Gvino import wines from a number of Georgian estates including a sparkling from Baia’s Wine. 266 Wines bring Ori Marani wines to the UK. Georgian Wine Club stock Badagoni, a popular producer of tank method sparkling, as well as qvevri and European-style still wines.