The real story behind Georgian wine

A shorter version of this article was published in Meininger Wine Business International Issue 4, 2017.

Georgia’s ancient wine culture is undoubtedly marketing gold, with taglines such as “8,000 vintages”, “The cradle of wine” and “525 indigenous varieties”. Together with the sacred tradition of making wine in giant, buried terracotta vessels (qvevri), this has exalted the country’s artisan winemakers to the status of natural wine shamans. “Wine is born, not made”, they pronounce. And they have become global poster boys (and girls) for all that is authentic, rootsy…