Various artisanal wines from Georgia

I had been wanting to try wines from Oda Family Marani for some time, so when I heard that Sager and Wine had imported some into the UK,  I approached them in August 2022 to get some, and finished up buying a mixed case of interesting artisanal wines from Georgia.

I’m afraid it took me over a year to work my way through the case, so it is unlikely that it is possible to buy more of these vintages – from anywhere actually, considering the small production volumes – but I thought my tasting notes might still be of some interest.

They were all tasted at home, and drunk with evening meals, so each one got a good “road test”. But the downside of course is that they were not compared side-by-side.

Tsolikouri, Oda Family Marani, 2020, 14.5%, £25.00

Dry amber wine. Natural, unfiltered. Grapes from small vineyard in Nakhunavo village (Martvili), in Samegrelo region. Naturally fermented on 50% skins, in qvevri for 7 months. 900 bottles made

Palish amber, or medium pale gold. Shiny and clear. Slight formation of froth in bottle after double-decanting. Intense, complex and peppery, reductive notes. Medium acidity. Dry. Slight astringency. Lip-smacking from the tang, astringency, and pepper notes. Flavours I more normally associate with orange wines, which were not so evident on the nose, came through on the palate. Dry, refreshing finish. Overall feeling of lightness despite the high alcohol content. Drink now. A solid *****

Dzelshavi, Oda Family Marani, 2020, 12.5%, Sager and Wine, £27.00

Dry red wine. Natural, unfiltered. Grapes from small vineyard in Bostana village (Ambrolauri), Racha region. Naturally fermented on all skins, aged in qvevri for 7 months. 900 bottles made

Medium pale ruby, with some hints of purple. Intense, fresh berry primary fruit. Cherry, and blueberry perhaps. Medium acidity. Low astringency. Some sweetness of ripe fruit. Quite edgy, similar to astringency, but I guess it was bitterness. But in a good way, as it helps the wine finish dry, and clean, fresh and grown, while still being lip-smackingly good. Drink now. I liked this a lot on first tasting, but not so much together with a chicken curry. However, another bottle bought at the same time seemed to improve with food throughout the evening. Overall, let’s say *****

Kakhuri Mtsvane, Kortavebis Marani, 2020, 12.7%, £30.00

Amber, dry,  natural qvevri wine. Unfiltered. Gremi village, Kakheti region. Full skin fermentation, age 9 months in qvevri. Made by Tamuna Bidzinashvili

Medium caramel brown. Not very intense. Sharpish, caramel and lemon. High acidity. High astringency. Strange aromatically – like herbal cough drops. Is that some sort of brett? Also quite phenolic. Not yet sure about how much I like this. It’s not what I would expect. As a tentative, uncertain score, I’d say ****

“Mimoza”, Freya’s Marani, 2020, 14.0%, £26.00

Tsolikouri grapes from Tsitelkhevi, Imereti region. Grapes foot crushed and left on all skins and stems for 10 days. Made in qvevri. Made by Ének Freya Peterson

Medium amber. Smoky. Burnt rubber maybe. Medium high acid. Dry. I sense there is intense fruit in there somewhere, but it is clobbered by the smokiness. Maybe with time throughout the evening the smokiness is blowing off and a complex wine is being revealed. I’m going to say ****

“Oh, the wind and the rain”, Freya’s Marani,  2020, 12.0%, £26.00

Tsolikouri and Krakhuna grapes from Persati, Imereti region. Foot crushed and left on all skins and stems for 4 months. Made in qvevri. Produced by Ének Freya Peterson

Medium pale ruddy gold. Fresh, gentle phenolic aromas. Medium high acidity. Dry. Medium high tannin. Intense, as nose, and complex. Bretty bandage notes – not unpleasant to my taste, but others might object to this. Worked well with food *****

“Cuvée Polyamoria”, Gogo Wine, 2019, 13.5%, £31.00

Saperavi, Mtsvane and Rkatsiteli grapes from Artana village, Telavi, Kakheti region. Macerated on skins for 6 months. Made by Keti and Kakha Berishvili

Proper red wine colour – crimson purple – but strangely pale. I guess that’s the blended red and white varieties. Intense, aromatic and spicy. Berry fruit. Medium high acid. Dry. Massive tannins. Intense, as nose. Decent length. Finishes dry. Lip-smacking from the flavour profile and the tannins. I love it, but definitely a food wine *****

Tiamora”, Gogo Wine, 2020, 15.5%, Sager and Wine, £31.00

Rkatsiteli. Amber, dry wine. Macerated with skins for 7 months. Made by Keti and Kakha Berishvili, Artana village, Telavi, Kakheti region

Medium ruddy amber. Intense, sharp, pungent almost, complex fruit. Bitter oranges? Nuts. High acid. Hugely intense, as nose. Massive astringency. Despite the astringency almost, this is a classy wine, and delicious. Why not drink now? Great example of a good hard-core Kakhetian wine in my opinion ******

“Moksa”, Gogo Wine, 2020, 12.5%, Sager and Wine, £31.00

Dry rosé wine. Chinuri, Mtsvane and Danakharuli grapes. Half were foot-crushed, and the remainder with skins maceration. Made by Keti and Kakha Berishvili, Artana village, Telavi, Kakheti region

Pinkish medium pale amber. Intense. Floral, rose perhaps. Phenolic. Medium high acid. Dry. Low but detectable astringency. As nose. Gentle, elegant, yet distinctly an orange wine. Drink now. One for orange-skeptics *****

Saperavi, Artanuli Gvino, 2019, 13.5%, £29.00

Red wine. 12 days skin maceration, qvevri ageing for 8 months. Made by Keti and Kakha Berishvili of Gogo Wine, but the  Artanuli Gvino project was started by their father. Artana village, Telavi, Kakheti region

Intense ruby purple. Intense, rich and brooding, dark fruit. High acidity, and acerbic. High tannins, maybe the root of the acerbic nature. Intense, as nose, the brooding weight being alieviated by the acidity. Big and impressive. Would probably age well to give a completely different wine, but attractive now in its own way if you like that sort of thing. I did, so *****

Chinuri, Samtavisi Marani, 2020, 12.0%, Sager and Wine, £33.00

Amber, dry wine, unfiltered. Made in qvevri with 7 months skin contact. Samtavisi village, Shida Kartli, region

Medium pale amber. Smells mainly of slight oxidation. Medium acid. Dry. Actually, this might be a tad corked too. Either way it’s not very pleasant. No joy to be had from this, but hopefully it is just a faulty bottle *

Goruli Mtsvane, Samtavisi Marani, 2020, 13.5%, Sager and Wine, £31.00

Amber, dry wine, unfiltered. Made in qvevri with 7 months skin contact. Samtavisi village, Shida Kartli region

Medium amber. No sediment, despite it being unfiltered. Medium phenolic. Dry. Alcohol on nose, and also on palate, where it conferred weight, some sweetness, and a slight alcoholic burn notes. Medium low acidity. Medium tannin. Despite the prominent alcohol, in some ways this was smooth and classy, and I quite liked it ****

 

Qvevri PGI

There has been a Georgian PGI for qvevri since 21st May 2021. Most web pages announcing the event seemed to be little more than rehashed versions of the same press release. So here, somewhat belatedly, I try to explain a bit of the background, and discuss some of the issues around the Qvevri PGI as I see them.

Originally, the Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) was introduced as an EU category that could be used interchangeably with country-specific terms such as Vin de Pays for wines from France, Vino de la Tierra for Spain, or Indicazione Geografica Tipica for Italy, etc. Key differences were that under the new system, the same name for the category was to be used in all countries, albeit possibly translated into a local language, and also that the same PGI category applied across a range of agricultural products and foodstuffs, such as wine, cheese and olive oil. In a similar fashion, the EU Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) was introduced as an alternative to the old Appellation d’Origine Controllée, Denominación de Origen, Denominazione di Origine Controllata, etc.

Following EU terminology, Georgia also introduced its own list of PGI and PDO goods. Previously it used the term Appellation of Origin, and while you still see that term used on the official website, which is a little confusing, all recent documents refer to the newer terms PGI and PDO.

Georgia’s list is independent of the EU’s, and is primarily only of relevance in Georgia, in the same way that the EU list applies primarily within the EU. However, both the EU and Georgia have entered into treaties with trading partners to gain recognition of their protected names in other countries too. Thus, for example, the USA recognises most EU PGIs and PDOs, though it has negotiated a small number of exceptions. Recognition of Georgian PGIs and PDOs outside of Georgia is however quite a lot more limited. You might like to note for reference that the official list of Georgian protected names is on the Sakpatenti website here, and the names protected by treaty in other countries are linked to from this page. If you are primarily interested in the Georgian wine PDOs, I recommend you take a look at this article first: Georgian Wine PDOs.

You can find the text of the Qvevri PGI document on the Sakpatenti website, which opens as a pop-up from the list of PGIs, but for your convenience I have created a PDF version of its text. The first thing worthy of note, is that the PGI applies to the qvevri itself, not the wine that is made in the vessel. So in that respect it breaks with EU usage, where PGIs and PDOs apply only to agricultural produce and foodstuffs. Also, as far as the geographical element of the PGI is concerned, the only requirements are that the raw materials should come from Georgia and that the qvevri be made in Georgia. I believe this is also inconsistent with EU usage, where PGIs and PDOs typically, if not always, refer to regions within countries.

In the PGI document, there is a lot of historical and cultural detail, but as far as I can see the only documented requirements of the PGI for qvevri seem to be that:

1) The raw materials should come from Georgia, and the qvevri is made in Georgia,

2) The qvevri maker is a member of the Organization of PGI Qvevri Producers/Makers, or other authorised body, and

3) The authorised body needs to certify that the vessel is indeed a qvevri, and make a permanent official mark of the organization on it, to allow traceablity.

The details of what is required to gain certification are not specified in the PGI document, and seem to be totally the responsibility of the certifying body.

I think it is commendable that steps are being taken to protect usage of the term Qvevri, but I am struggling to understand what precisely this PGI achieves. If I understand it correctly the PGI would stop someone in Georgia claiming to sell or own a qvevri if that vessel does not have appropriate marking and associated documentation. It might also prevent a wine producer claiming Qvevri as a trademark, as happened in Armenia with Karas, the Armenian equivalent of the qvevri. However, the PGI seems to exclude any qvevri made before the authorised bodies came into existence. And the chances of any other country recognising the Georgian Qvevri PGI will be pretty slim, as it applies to a clay vessel, rather than an agricultural product or foodstuff.

To me, the important thing is how the qvevri is used in winemaking. If the wine barely touches the insides of the qvevri, why should I care about whether it conforms to the new PGI? I was rather hoping for something on wine labels that would provide a guarantee that the wine was fermented, and aged for a specified period of time, in a qvevri vessel that conforms to a specific definition. To me, the obvious way to achieve this would be to append “Qvevri” to existing PDO names for such wines. And to be totally unambiguous about the claim, the text “PDO” should always be used on the label where it applies, e.g. “Kakheti Qvevri PDO”.

Within Georgia, I guess reputable qvevri winemakers are well known, and in some cases friends or relatives. But those of us that buy exported Georgian wines need a bit more reassurance – a reassurance that Qvevri PGI sadly does not provide.

Tsigani Gogo, a Georgian wine by Laura Siebel & Niki Antadze

For several reasons I found this wine both interesting and distinctive. Delicious too.

The first impression is the striking label, presumably depicting a tsigani gogo (gypsy girl), and the unusual blue bottle with a red wax seal. Now blue is not a bottle colour I associate with good quality wines – quite the reverse in fact – but I must admit the overall effect is rather classy. Then you might notice that the wine is the result of a collaboration between Laura Siebel, of Domaine de la Pinte in the Jura, and Niki Atadze and his winery in the Georgian region of Kakheti. Turn the bottle round, and you will see that the combination of grapes varieties used in this wine is as unlikely as the winemaker partnership. It is in fact a blend of the red variety Saperavi, and the white Mtsvane. Well, I say Saperavi is red, but it is a teinturier variety and often gives wines that are so dark as to be nearly opaque.

I do not know the percentage of Mtsvane used, but judging by the wine’s medium-pale red and its aromatics I would guess it is substantial – a lot closer to 50% than the 5 to 10% of Viognier that is typically added to Syrah for example. Neither do I know the degree of skin contact this wine had, but if either Saperavi or Mtsvane is made in the traditional Kakheti style, with the must fermenting and ageing on all the stalks and skins, you can get an extremely astringent wine. While Tsigani Gogo did have fair degree of astringency, it was not extremely high, so I would guess the stalks were discarded after crushing, perhaps along with some of the skins. What I do know about the production is from the UK importer Caves de Pyrene: “Fermentation, vinification and ageing in qvevri. No punchdown, no press wine, all wild and ambient. No filtration and no sulphur”. The absence of punching-down is another departure from traditional Kakheti practice, and that too would reduce the wine’s astringency. Caves de Pyrene also say that the Antadze Winery has organic vineyards, so I guess all together that means this is a natural wine – should you care about that sort of thing. Tasting note follows…

Tsgani Gogo, Laura Siebel & Niki Antadze, Pomegranate-color wine from Saperavi and Mtsvane, 12.5%
It is apparently from the 2016 vintage, but not stated on the label. I paid £28.44 from Caves de Pyrene, including a 10% discount. Medium pale ruby. Intense, fresh, and aromatic. The nose reminds me a lot more of Mtsvane than Saperavi. Medium high acidity. Maybe slightly sweet? Tingly on tongue, from both acidity and I think dissolved CO2. Lazy bubbles on the side of the glass also indicated a high CO2 content. Medium astringency. Very bracing from the acidity, and astringency. Fresh red berry aromatics, and sharp apricot perhaps from the Mtsvane. Drink now. Instantly likeable for me, and what I think is called glou glou. This is not a wine for serious and respectful sipping, but its structure makes it nevertheless feel quite grown-up *****

Nikoladzeebis Marani

Nikoladzeebis Marani, which translates as Nikoladzes’ Wine Cellar, is the producer name you will see on wine bottles, but a lot of people will be more familiar with the name of the winemaker-owner Ramaz Nikoladze. Like Archil Guniava and his family, who we had visited previously on of our tour, Ramaz is a man of Imereti, and was making and selling wine locally before it occurred to him to bottle it and sell further afield. But Ramaz went a bit further. He was a bit of ringleader in persuading his fellow Imereti winemakers to set their sights on Tbilisi and beyond, and was also one of the founding members of the co-operative that kicked off the Tbilisi wine bar Ghvino Underground, a place that gave these wines showcase and market.


It was his wife, Nestan, who warmly welcomed us, showed us the new marani in an outhouse, and gave us lunch. We only got to see Ramaz briefly, as he was busy dealing with urgent business most of the day: he had to spray his vines, but there was a problem with the equipment. Archil had been spraying Bordeaux mixture, so presumably the same task was what Ramaz had in mind.

The new marani was created a few years ago with new qvevri, as shown in the film Our Blood is Wine. Indeed, I included a still from the documentary in my review, showing Ramaz helping to roll one of the qvevri into place. But when we were visiting, the qvevri were full, sealed with glass discs and covered in sand, the smaller pots above ground being for temporary storage of wine. We were told that bottling would take place in a few weeks’ time.

Then we were invited into the cool and spacious dining room of Nestan and Ramaz’s house, for lunch and the opportunity to try four different Nikoladzeebis Marani wines.

I think all wines were from 2016, and below I have identified the wines by their varieties. More very brief notes I am afraid, but the wines I liked most are clearly indicated by my star ratings.

Tsolikouri
No skin contact. The grapes came from Ramaz’ uncle’s vineyard. Pale gold. Intense, fresh, aromatically grapey. Medium acid. No tannin. Delicate ***

Tsitska, Tsolikouri
3 months skin contact. Pale gold. Intense, fresh, aromatically grapey. Medium acid. Medium low tannin. Fresh and vibrant. Aromas more intense on the palate *****

90% Aladasturi, 10% Dzelshavi
Not yet bottled. Medium purple. Intense fresh dark fruit. Medium high acid. Medium tannin ******

Chkhaveri
Not yet bottled. Medium purple ruby. Intense and fresh. Medium acid. Low tannin ***

Archil Guniava Wine Cellar

We stopped off at Archil Guniava Wine Cellar on our way from the south of Georgia to Kutaisi. This was the first producer visit on our tour of South and West Georgia and we did not know what to expect. Archil’s place is located a few kilometres from the town of Zestafoni, off on a narrow road with rural houses strung out on both sides, and part of a settlement that goes under the name of Kvaliti. The already narrow road got even narrower. At one point our driver asked for directions and was told “keep going until the road ends, and it’s on your right”. This is about as rural as you could get whilst still being in the presence of houses.

On arrival, we were invited into the marani, a qvevri-containing cellar. It was the afternoon, and we had had a heavy lunch, but of course we were offered more food –  enough to have served as a lunch on any normal day. In addition to the obvious cucumber and tomato shown below, there is a bowl of hazelnuts, and the bread you see at the front of the image is khachapuri. Sadly, after the lunch even I was not able to make much of an impact on what we were given.

Although Archil worked in forestry, and still does, he comes from a family that was in previous generations well known for selling wine locally. So Archil now uses the family marani and qvevri, and his daughter makes wine there too. Compared with artisinal winemakers we met who have lived and worked in Tbilisi, Archil seems to be much more rooted in his village and his family’s winemaking heritage, and is maybe less subject to external influences. I read for example that he first learned about cultured yeast for winemaking only a few years ago (not that he uses it now, of course), and he still finds it strange that people like us want to visit and buy his wine. It is indeed strange when you think about it, but what of the wines we tasted?

They were all from 2017, and moved directly from qvevri to tasting-glass using a pipette. They are identified below by grape variety.

Tsitska
This was made with no skin contact, and will be ready in August. Very pale. Intense, fresh, and grapey. Low acid, and maybe a little off dry. Spritzy. Low tannin. Bitter finish. Pleasant enough, but this was too light and watery for my taste ***

Krakhuna
Spent 4 months on 15% of the skins, and was then transferred to new qvevri. Will be ready in August. Light gold. Intense, slightly vegetal, broad bean shells. Medium acid. Medium low tannin. I liked this better ****

60% Tsitska, 20% Krakhuna, 20% Tsolikouri
Contact with 100% of the skins for 4 months. This is the first time Archil has made this wine. Light gold. Intense, aromatic, a bit cheesy. Medium acid. Medium high tannin. Excellent length. My favourite so far, and this should get better. A successful experiment *****

80% Tsolikouri, 20% Otskhanuri Sapere
Contact only with the Otskhanuri Sapere skins. Palish red colour. Intense Beaujolais-like fruit. Medium high acidity. Medium tannin ****

Mgaloblishvili
Contact with 100% of the skins for 9 days. Made by Archil’s daughter. Medium pale red colour. Intense, sweet yet fresh red berry fruit. High acid. Sharp red fruit on palate. High tannin *****

These wines are not yet available in the UK, but will be imported by Proper Natural Wine. I personally imported one bottle each of Mgaloblishvili and a Tsolikouri Tsitska Krakhuna blend, both 2016.

Oda Family Winery and Vino Martville

As another stop on our tour of South and West Georgia, we visited Oda, the family home of Keto Ninidze. Beneath the living-quarters of the house is the family winery managed by Keto, and there is also a restaurant business there. The restaurant is where we had lunch, except we were the only guests at the time, and Keto stayed with us at the table after showing us around her cellar and vineyards. So where does Vino Martville come into the picture? Well, Keto is married to Zaza Gagua who is a partner in that winery. (It is sometimes styled as M’artville with the “art” bit in another font and/or colour, I shall stick with Martville!) Vino Martville is currently better established than Oda Family Winery, so you are more likely to have heard of it, and the wines drank with lunch were Vino Martville.

Oda Family Winery lies in the village of Martvili, in the region of Samegrelo. Not only is Oda the name of this house and winery, but the word also describes this style of traditional Megrelian house, with pillars to keep out the damp and a shady veranda. Zaza and Keto moved here from Tbilisi, but the house belonged to Zaza’s great-grandfather, who built it around 100 years ago.

As is sometimes the case with oda houses, part of the ground floor has been walled-off to create a cellar space, and here the cellar contains qvevri and other winemaking equipment. I didn’t notice it when we were visiting, but that wooden thing to the left under the house, looks like a trough for treading grapes. Inside the cellar there is one small 50 li and few 500 li qvevri, along with a small basket press and stainless steel tank, and a storage room for bottled wine. Keto is shown here with one of her qvevri. Close to the house is a vineyard recently planted with the Ojalashi and Chviriluri varieties, but it is still too young to produce grapes for wine, so the first couple of vintages of Oda were made from grapes brought in.

In front of the house across the grass is a separate building for the kitchen, which I think is a traditional arrangement in Samegrelo but this was over-sized to cater for the restaurant, and a wooden canopy to shelter the restaurant tables.

The food was amazing – quite possibly the best we have had in Georgia, though some of that enthusiasm may be due to my love of spice, which is one of the defining features of Megrelian food. We started with pickled jonjoli flowers in a corn bread tart-casing, which was a great combination. Also show below, looking like a tomato-free pizza, is Megrelian khachapuri. Unlike the perhaps more common Imeretian style of khachapuri, here the bread is not only filled with cheese but is also covered with toasted cheese. Mmmm, cheese – if I wanted to invest in a street food business in the UK, it would specialise in khachapuri. Also shown are pieces of chicken with a light brown walnut(?) sauce and, just visible bottom right, two types of adjika, which is a paste of chili and other spices.

I believe the rolls shown below are gebjalia, which is also mainly cheese, the structural bit being heated cheese and milk rolled out when it has acquired the correct elastic texture, with a herby filling, and a soft cheese on the side and in the sauce. Cheese too is an important ingredient in the elarji, another Megrelian speciality, being pulled out of the pot to demonstrate that it has the right consistency. The basis is ghomi, which is a sort of porridge very similar to a soft polenta, and can be eaten as it is as the carbohydrate part of a meal. But if you stir in a type of cheese, and keep stirring and stir some more, you get a delicious cheesy stodge, which was served with an equally delicious and spicy stew. I think the meat was veal, and it was in a thick and slightly grainy sauce that I suspect got its consistency from nuts. Whatever it was it was good, and worked well with the elarji.

Was there something else? Ah, yes, the wines. Sorry, but again I have very brief descriptions and very enthusiastic ratings. I am not sure if the paucity of description is just a weakness on my part, or if there is something about these wines that discourages verbiage – as in many ways the appeal of these wines lies in their immediacy and simplicity. It may be some sort of vinous heresy, but in my opinion complexity is overrated. Philosophy aside, here are my tasting notes:

Vino Martville, Krakhuna, 2017
Medium greenish gold. Slightly cloudy. Intense, fresh, orange aromas. High acid. Medium high tannin. Mouthwatering. As nose. Drink now ******

Vino Martville, Aladasturi, 2017
Medium purple. Intense, sweet, dark berry fruit on the nose. Medium high acid. Medium low tannin. Drink now *****

Finally, a few words about Keto. She was a philologist in Tbilisi and, in addition to making wine and looking after her family, intends to continue writing – about wine, and life at Oda. Judging by our conversations I am sure she will write from a thoughtful and interesting perspective, and I look forward to reading anything that might appear in English.

Gotsa Family Wines

Like all the producers we visited on this trip, the location of Gotsa Family Wines  is rural and idyllic. Unlike the other locations however, it is readily accessible from Tbilisi by car – under an hour’s drive to the south, in the Asureti Valley. On arrival, we met the winemaker Beka Gotsadze and took a tour of his cellars, but first let’s take a look at the three wines we drank with lunch. Here they are with pre-lunch nibbles.All three were 2016 wines from Asureti Valley vineyards. Below I have identified all the wines by their grapes, but I think the one with five grapes might just be called Asureti White or something similar. My ratings may seem very high, but no claim of objectivity is made, and that is what you get when drinking outside in the shade with a great lunch and in a beautiful environment. Nevertheless, the Chinuri was my clear favourite, even if tasting note could have been more eloquent, and I was more than happy to fill the final 4 remaining bottle-shaped holes in our suitcases with wines purchased from Beka.

Chinuri
Medium gold. Intense, fresh, apricot. Phenolic. Medium high acid. Medium low tannin. As nose. Drink now ******

Mtsvane, Khikhvi, Kisi, Mtsviani, Chitisvala Bodburi
Darker brownish amber. Intense, fig, raisins. Probably a little oxidised. Medium acid. High tannin. Refreshing, despite all the dried fruit flavours. Drink now *****

Tavkveri
This is labelled as a rosé wine, but I would rather describe it as a lightish red wine, like a less-serious red Beaujolais for example. Medium pale purple. Intense, soft strawberry aromas. Medium acid. Off-dry effect, but that could be from ripe fruit aromas. Low but noticeable tannin. Drink now ****
Beka was fun company, over lunch and during the tour. He was opinionated, but didn’t seem to take himself too seriously, and was willing to listen to other ideas too. He is definitely in the natural camp of winemakers, with certified-organic vineyards and low-intervention winemaking, and he is traditional to the extent that he uses qvevri and Georgian grape varieties. However, that is really where tradition ends and his desire to tinker and innovate kicks in.

Rather than using wood or stone to seal the neck of the qvevri, Beka prefers stainless steel. That is now quite a common thing in Georgia, but he has also devised a large insulating cap for the qvevri that hold maturing wine, to help keep the temperature constant. He also dangles electric heating elements in his qvevri to sterilise them before use. The insulating cap and sterilisation device are illustrated above. The long baskety thing, also illustrated, is a coarse filter that you drop into the qvevri to remove the heaviest crud from the wine you take out from within the basket.

But perhaps the most impressive innovation is that the fermentation qvevri have tubing coiled around them underground, enabling Beka to cool or heat the wine in the qvevri by pumping water through the tubing. The alcoholic fermentation produces heat, so to keep the temperature lower Beka pumps through cold spring water, and the resulting warm water goes into his swimming pool. And to encourage malolactic fermentation by warming the wine, the direction of flow is reversed, taking warm water from the pool. Beka shows us the controls for this temperature control system in the above image. Before becoming a winemaker, Beka used to be an architect, and his company designed heating systems for buildings – presumably this was the inspiration for his qvevri temperature-control ideas. The usual story you get in Georgia is that the qvevri is an ideal winemaking vessel perfected over millennia, and that the earth around the qvevri works perfectly to moderate its temperature.  So I am sure Beka’s ideas are not without controversy, but how do you know how perfect the basic qvevri is until you explore alternatives?

Another practice frowned on in some Georgian circles is that Beka matures his red wines in flavour-neutral old oak barrels to allow small amounts of oxygen into the wine. The frowns are because traditionally, i.e. before the 19th century, wood was not used to hold wine in Georgia winemaking, everything being in qvevri. Regardless of the vessel used, it is noteworthy that Beka sees fit to age his wine for up to two years before release, as he thinks is important for the wines to stabilise, especially if they are to be exported and experience less-than-ideal conditions in transit.

Overall, a great visit – certainly something to consider if you are a wine-lover staying in Tbilisi for a while.

An Amazing Mtsvane and a Cracking Krakhuna

The Mtsvane and Krakhuna were served to us at g.Vino in Tbilisi, and Sapere in Kutaisi. We enjoyed evening meals there, but equally I have seen both places described as wine bars. Certainly you can pop into g.Vino for just a drink, and I presume the same applies to Sapere. They both focus on artisanal, natural, qvevri wine, g.Vino’s selection being pretty impressive, while Sapere is a smaller place with more limited choice. Actually, when we were at Sapere it was even more limited than normal – I asked for an orange wine and was offered only one option as they had used up most of their stock and were waiting for the 2017 harvest. Nevertheless, that wine turned out to be excellent, and Sapere had the edge over g.Vino when it came to food. Nowhere in Georgia did I eat badly, but Sapere was particularly good. Anyway, more on the two specific wines…

At g.Vino I said I’d like a bottle of Mtsvane, and was given a taster of  Chona’s Marani Mtsvane 2016. Mtsvane simply means green, and actually there are a few different Mtsvane varieties in Georgia, the most common one coming from Kakheti, where Chona’s Marani is located. So this was the Kakhetian Mtsvane – Mtsvane Kakhuri in Georgian – which is what I am used to drinking. But this was different. I was expecting something bright, lively, phenolic, astringent and aromatic, but this was more soft and gentle. Its appearance was not pretty – a cloudy muddy brown colour, depicted well in the image above. But I was not planning to sit and look at it all evening, and the nose was a lot more attractive – intense, fresh, fruity and spicy – and on the palate it had moderate amounts of acidity and tannin, giving that lip-smacking quality that works so well with food, without being too dominant. On the palate I noticed a slight lactic character, which also tended to give it a more rounded impression. Overall I liked it a lot (*****), so we took the rest of the bottle for 50 GEL. As far as I can tell it is not available in the UK, but if it was I guess it would retail for around £20 – the price most Georgian natural qvervi wines seem to sell for.

The wine we were offered at Sapere was the Giorgi Shalamberidze Wine Cellar Krakhuna 2015. According to the back label, it comes from the “Zestafoni district of Imereti, in the village of Tskhratskaro”, but that is pretty much all I can find out about the producer. Krakhuna is the grape variety, which I had not tasted before, but this wine was one of two really stunningly good examples we came across on the trip. It was pale gold, with an intense nose – honeyed and mildly spiced. Immediately after opening it was very slightly fizzy. There was a slightly off dry effect on the palate, which together with the honey on the nose could indicate a small amount of botrytis. Sadly, I realise this tasting note fails to explain why, but the wine was absolutely delicious. It hit the spot, and I gave it a doubtless hyperbolic ******. You had to be there to understand!

A trip to South and West Georgia

My first visit to Georgia was mainly in Kakheti – the Eastern part of Georgia, where most of its wine is made. It made a big impression on me, and since then I have spent a lot of time reading, thinking and writing about Georgia. I had to return, and this time headed South and West from Tbilisi, spending one night near Vardzia and three in Kutaisi. The remaining three nights, immediately after and before our flights, were in Tbilisi. This time there was just the two of us in a car with a guide, on a private tour organised by Living Roots, which was a very much more intimate experience compared to the Arblaster and Clarke trip last time, and considerably cheaper. The number of wines we got to try was a considerably less, and we generally drank the wine, as God intended, rather than tasting it. But that was no bad thing. In addition to natural qvevri wines bottled for sale, we drank undocumented homemade restaurant house wines probably made the same way, and a couple of examples of cheap factory wines (as the Georgians sneeringly call them).

Just to be clear from a disclosure point of view for anything I might write about this trip –  we paid for everything we received. It was a holiday; not a press trip.

Some of the many highlights…

Part of the Vardzia cave-city to the right, overlooking its valley

In the South we visited the cave-city of Vardzia. Established in the 12th century as a place to hide from invading armies, it grew to a man-made cave complex on 13 levels suitable for permanent inhabitation. A series of earthquakes later exposed the cave-city in section, which is what we see now. Further North, and much close to Kutaisi, we visited the Gelati Monastery. It was founded in 1106, and became one of the most important cultural and intellectual centres in Georgia.

Gelati Monastery

Travelling North-West from Kutaisi, in the Samegrelo region of Georgia, we saw the beautiful Martvili Canyon, and rafted in a more gently flowing part of the river, also visiting the large limestone Prometheus Cave on our return journey.

The wine producers we visited were: Archil Guniava Wine Cellar, Nikoladzeebis Marani, Oda and Vino Martville, Nika Vacheishvili’s Marani, and Gotsa Family Wines. I’ll try to write more about them in later posts, but right now I would just like to say what wonderful lunches we had in those places. Our visit to Archil was late in the afternoon, and even there we were offered delicious khachapuri, tomato, cucumber and nuts.

Lunch at Nika Vacheishvili’s place in the Ateni Valley

Apart from lunches at winemakers, there were a few other foodie highlights. On our first evening we had great food and wine at g.Vino in Tbilisi. Here, there was a good selection of natural qvevri wine, and the staff were very friendly, helpful and knowledgeable. For lunch the next day we were in Poka Nunnery, in a cosy dining room with a wood stove. The whole meal was good, but I particularly remember the river trout, boned, and stuffed with onion, and the selection of hand-made nunnery cheeses to finish. Another meal that stood out was a dinner in the Kutaisi restaurant Sapere. The delicate spicing of the food was wonderful, and I also remember we drank a particularly good bottle of wine.

Barbare Jorjadze (left) at the Tbilisi restaurant Barbarestan. Clearly someone not to be messed with

The final meal of the trip was back in Tbilisi at the restaurant Barbarestan, which was significantly more up-market than any other place we visited in Georgia. All the recipes were taken from a 19th century cookbook written by Barbare Jorjadze, so every dish is traditionally Georgian, but not necessarily commonly eaten in modern Georgia. The decor and crockery is also perhaps how you might imagine things to have been back in 19th century Georgia. The food was good, and interesting, but I think the extra Lari we spend to eat in a place like this mainly went towards providing a very polished level of service. It was fun to try, but personally I prefer a more laid-back atmosphere.

Naming of Pots – amphora, qvevri, talha?

Today we have naming of pots. Compared to the beauty of wine, the names of the various types of clay container used in winemaking can seem rather prosaic, but they are of more than just geeky interest. Marketers will want names with the right sort of resonance, while other more practical minds might want precision to enable them to distinguish particular styles and usages. And layered on top of all that are cultural sensitivities: who owns the name, and who has the right to determine how it is used?

Amphorae as they would be stacked for transport in a ship’s hull
For whatever reason, the world of wine seems to have settled on using the word amphora as the generic name for a clay jar used in winemaking, and I think I can understand why. It is a vaguely familiar word that sounds good to western ears. It also nods towards the civilisations of Greece and Rome, which cannot be a bad thing when trying to create a positive image. But there are issues with using amphora, the first of which is accuracy. Most amphorae were actually relativity small containers of around 40 litres. And they usually had two handles to enable them to be moved about easily, as implied by the etymology of the name. Also, they were not used for winemaking, but rather for transportation and storage. Consequently, to call large handleless static vessels used for winemaking amphorae has little justification. Another issue is that the term amphora winemaking seems to imply that it originated around the Mediterranean, despite some styles being clearly modelled on the way qvevri have been used in Georgia for millennia. This failure to recognise Georgian tradition has understandably upset some Georgians.

So, we have the possibility of describing a clay winemaking vessel as an amphora as discussed above or, in at least some cases, a qvevri. I have done to death the subject of qvevri recently on this blog, so for more details I invite you to use the link above for more information, or even better my blog’s search box. But what other names could be appropriate? Let’s start by looking at other old names for clay containers that were kicking about at roughly the same time as amphorae.

Qvevri-like clay vessels used to make COS Pithos Rosso

There is the pithos for example. According to its Wikipedia article, the word pithos can be used for pretty much any old clay container, which is encouraging. Even better, they typically were often considerably larger than amphorae, and some of them could have been buried, as qvevri are. I am not sure that pithos was ever used to describe a fermentation vessel in ancient times, but it does seem a possibility. And the Sicilian wine producer COS, has named its clay-vessel wines Pithos, so there is some sort of precedent for its use. But sadly I fear the word pithos is little known today, so it is not great from a marketing perspective even if the word is more accurate than amphora. And the Georgians would still be upset.

Other ancient words for Mediterranean clay pots are dolium and krater. The word dolium looks like it could be an interesting contender for a generic name for a winemaking jar if it were better known. It is a large static clay container used for storage. And, as with the pithos, there seems to be a possibility that it was used also for fermenting wine. Krater on the other hand is really a non-starter. It does have associations with wine, but at the drinking end of its life cycle; kraters were used for mixing wine with water before serving.

Talhas in Alentejo. Note bung sticking out of hole bottom-right.

But moving away from obsolete words, let’s take a look at the Alentejo in Portugal. In that region, as in Georgia, there has been a continuous clay winemaking traditional that goes back millennia. The name for the clay winemaking vessel there is talha, and its use can be traced back at least 2,000 years. Like qvevri, talhas are large vessels of around 2m high and can be 1,000li or more capacity but, unlike qvevri, talhas stand above ground. That has at least one advantage and a few disadvantages. The advantage is that is it possible to get most of the wine out of the talha through a hole near its bottom, while you need to scoop or pump wine to get it out of a kvevri. Disadvantage number one is that talhas occasionally explode, and if you do not regularly punch-down to break the cap on the fermenting wine, the chances of explosion are increased. I have not heard of this problem with qvevri, so presumably the pressure from the earth around the buried qvevri helps keep it intact. Also, to punch-down, which requires considerable force, you might need to balance on a step-ladder, or even do it with your feet on the rim of the talha, while in Georgia you can keep you feet firmly on the ground – terra firma rather than terracotta. Finally, to keep the temperature of the fermenting wine low enough, the outside of the talha must be regularly dampened with water. In Georgia the earth around the qvevri acts to moderate the temperature.

Beyond the talha in Alentejo, in Spain I see that sometimes winemaking involves a tinaja, which seems to be the Spanish version of the word talha, but I cannot find out much about the history of the tinaja in Spanish winemaking, and it is also sometimes used for concrete jar-shaped vessels, as well as pottery. Similarly, at least in terms of my inability to find details, Armenia uses a qvevri-like vessel called a karas. There are also by the way a number of alternative Georgian regional words for qvevri.

All things considered, my personal view is that for a generic term, rather than the word amphora, we should simply say clay jar, and the phrase in clay could be used in the same way that we might use in oak. Unfortunately though, I fear the amphora horse has bolted, and we are stuck with the term.

But where appropriate, why not be as specific and local as we can be? Let’s use qvevri to describe the Georgian vessel, and of course talha in the Alentejo. As I see it, the only issue is in figuring out which specific names to use where there is no long local tradition. In those cases I would suggest using the traditional vessel name that best describes it, even if it comes from another culture. For example, those buried vessels at COS look pretty much like qvevri to me, so let’s use that name. If you feel your audience will not understand qvevri, a simple explanatory sentence will communicate so much more than persisting with amphora.

So much for the naming of pots. You might like now to move back to considering the beauty of wine, or even of the pots themselves.

Update 01/04/21: In a discussion on Jancis Robinson’s online forum, another couple of clay winemaking vessels were mentioned. Simon Woolf wrote about another Portuguese one called a tareco which, at up to 500 li, is smaller than a talha. Also Peter Harvey described the Peruvian botija, which is now the subject of another blog post.