I love etymology, the study of word origins, the idea that our history as a people and a species is embedded in the very words we use to narrate it.
Take “wine.” You might assume a French origin or perhaps Latin, digging back a couple thousand years. But wine is more ancient than that, and the word itself pays tribute to a corner of the world that wine lovers largely neglect. “Wine” derives from the Georgian word “ghvino,” commemorating the people who first domesticated the European grapevine roughly eight thousand vintages ago. Luckily for our sake, Georgia is reemerging on the international market, ready to claim its rightful mantle as the Birthplace of Wine. Scores of new producers emerge every year; more of their work reaches our shores than ever before; and new champions emerge to shed light on their winemaking traditions.
Our old friend Noel is back and better than ever with a full slate of documentary shorts (“Georgia ReWined”) featuring five different regions of the country.
For a country the size of West Virginia, Georgia is remarkably diverse geographically and culturally, and the wines follow suit. The first installment of Georgia ReWined goes live with the incomparable Noel Brocket of Georgian Wine House paying a visit to Dato Kobidze in the country’s westernmost region, Guria. On the eastern banks of the Black Sea, Guria has a humid, subtropical climate that made it an important center of tea cultivation during the Soviet era. Dato is dedicated to reviving the native grapes that languished under Communist rule with the bulk of his vineyards planted to the late-ripening, thin-skinned red Chkhaveri.
Georgia produces a small fraction of the world’s wine, and the traditionally crafted bottlings that we’re celebrating this month account for an even slimmer segment of the market. The country figures as little more than a footnote in most authoritative guides to the world of fine wine, and yet this marks our third virtual visit in a year’s time.
Georgia is that very “primordial ground” of wine as we enjoy it. To taste these examples is to experience wine at its most alive as it has been since the first qvevri was sunk thousands of vintages ago.
Wines featured:
Chkaveri Rosé, Dato’s Wine, Guria, Georgia, 2020
Racheli Tetra, Kereselidze, Racha, Georgia, 2020
Tsolikouri Blend, Baia’s Wine, Imereti, Georgia, 2020
Shavkapito, Tevza, Kartli, Georgia, 2019
In Bill’s recap email, he said this:
Shota Rustaveli wrote the definitive work of Georgian Golden Age poetry, The Knight in the Panther Skin. Rustaveli famously said:
Spending on feasting and wine is better than hoarding our substance. That which we give makes us richer, that which is hoarded is lost.
It is the enduring cultural signifier that has sustained the Georgian people through centuries of invasion. It is common and of the earth but transcendental, ephemeral but enduring. IGeorgiansbelieve that visitors are gifts from God, and they entertain their guests with a religious zeal that verges on mania. Everything about the traditional Georgian feast – supra – is oversized, the table laid out with a banquet’s worth of food that is continuously supplemented until the guests are glassy-eyed and gorged. Wine is the impetus for this war of attrition, without which no toasts are made, no thirsts are slaked, and no guests are honored. The Times’ Moscow Bureau Chief speaks of visiting Kakheti in 2006: “. . . where almost every household makes wines, often for personal use but also for sale. Each household is intensely proud of its achievements. Wine is fundamental, a taproot of Georgian culture and psyche. In the villages, making and drinking wine is not a mannered, refined pursuit, but as basic as drawing water from a well, a thing to be enjoyed regularly and simply.”
I have all sorts of additional resources for you below, if you want to dig even deeper, I highly recommend the pair of books I showed off Sunday: Lisa Granik’s The Wines of Georgia and Carla Capalbo’s Tasting Georgia.
– SevenFifty daily compiled an introductory guide in partnership with Wines of Georgia.
– The aforementioned Lisa Granik offers her take on the Georgian wine boom.
– The incomparable Baia Abuladze is interviewed by Food & Wine.
– Esther Mobley confirms that “Georgian wine is worth the hype,” but then again, you knew that already.