We hope you are all fine and concentrating on your health and well being. We feel it’s time to open a bottle of wine, especially the wines of the county of Georgia.

Georgia has been through more than 8000 vintages of ups and downs, so we are cautious yet optimistic that their fledgling democracy and open market will weather this storm, too. Proving the adage “what’s old is new,” Georgia’s ancient winemaking techniques fulfill today’s quest for natural, organic, low-intervention, biodynamic, and amber wines. As the country continues to recover from decades of Soviet occupation, the vineyards are similarly being reborn, with rescued grape varieties – from among the 520 indigenous to the country – increasingly planted and vinified, as well as smaller regions and new PDOs being established each year. Simultaneously, traditions are modernizing; for example, women winemakers are playing a notable role, as well as large and small wineries often cooperating rather than competing.

Two Georgian wines we recently tasted that we can highly recommend:

Guardians Rkatsiteli, a wonderfully refreshing dry, crisp white wine, bursting with melon and apricot.

2017 Iberiuli Saperavi, a dry red aged in French oak, dark pomegranate in color, with delightful spices and violet aromas. This wine has a long lasting feel in the mouth. This wine is made within the Qvevri, large lemon-shaped terracotta pots that are buried in the ground up to its neck, from fermentation right through to maturation, with the fermenting grape juice often being left on the skins and even grape stems (the “mother”) to create wines of exceptional flavor, complexity and color.