Hello! Welcome to As Drunk By Exotic Wine Travel, a weekly column where we feature wines that are worth noting. The reviews featured in this series may be written by either one or the both of us. The featured wines can be from obscure or well-known wine regions. We hope that these wine recommendations will keep you gastronomically curious and your palate invigorated!

Gotsa Chinuri 2015

Beka Gotsa has a beautiful 4-hectare plot in Central Georgia. His home and winery are scenic at about 1,300 meters above sea level. He recently received his Demeter (biodynamic) certificate and produces wines with minimal intervention.

We first visited the Gotsa winery and home in the Fall of 2016. It’s a short and beautiful drive from Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. The sealed road to Gotsa is winding and boasts incredible views over the Asureti Valley. Turning off the road reveals a muddy, one-lane dirt road, which is the final leg of the journey to Gotsa Winery.

Gotsa produces several orange wines (amber wines), a rosé, and a few red wines all made from local grapes. All wines are qvevri wines, fermented and macerated in Georgian qvevri (buried terra-cotta vessels). The wines are made with wild, native yeasts and are not fined or filtered.

Beka has recently started the production of pétillant naturel or pét-nat wines from local grapes. These wines are sparkling wines that are bottled before fermentation is finished, resulting in natural carbonation. It was a blast (literally and figuratively) tasting through these exciting wines. We also got lots of yeast cells all over our clothes after opening multiple bottles.

Getting a taste of Gotsa’s first batch of Pét-Nat and it’s all quite excellent! Our fave is the Pét-Nat made from the indigenous Georgian variety Tsitska. Pét-Nat is an unfiltered sparkling wine made in method ancestrale where the wine is made without additional sugar and bottled before primary fermentation is finished. #UncorkingTheCaucasus

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All of Gotsa’s wines are lovely, but we found ourselves frequently revisiting the Gotsa Chinuri 2015. Chinuri is a grape that we fell in love ever since first visiting the country in 2015. There are only a handful of producers working with the grape and it makes amber wines that are not as tannic as other Georgian grapes. They make for a wonderful introduction to newbies to the macerated wine world.

Could this be the best Chinuri in Georgia? It is one of our favorites for sure. For a wine that has spent eight months on the skins, this is weightless on the palate. Pineapple, yellow peach, nuts, and a touch of red fruit round out the flavor profile. Tangy acidity with a tiny bit of tug from the tannins. This is a beautiful effort and one helluva wine, we can’t wait to try the 2016 vintage.

The post Gotsa Chinuri 2015 (Georgian Amber Wine) appeared first on Wine Travel.

For a listing of articles and videos on Georgian wine and other wines from the Caucasus region, check out our page Uncorking the Caucasus. To purchase the Kindle or paperback copy of the book Uncorking the Caucasus: Wines from Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia, please head to this Amazon product page.

Georgia, the Country of Ancient Winemaking

At the intersection between Eastern Europe and Western Asia lies an important key to the origins of wine: Georgia. It is a mountainous country that has survived many millennia of conflicts and somehow managed to hang on to its traditions including its love for wine.

In Georgia, wine production has been going on uninterrupted for 8,000 years. The qvevri is the symbol of Georgian winemaking. As early as in the Neolithic age, grape juice was fermented in buried qvevri. It is fascinating that thousands of years later, Georgia is still making wine in the same way as it did in the past. For that reason, drinking Georgian qvevri wine is similar to tasting the flavors of the ancient past. The Georgians who make wine in qvevri believe in the laissez-faire approach, where nothing is added and nothing is taken away. By putting the grapes into a qvevri and burying it underground, the winemaker allows nature to do most of the work.

 

What is Qvevri?

The qvevri (pronounce “kway-vree”) is an egg-shaped, beeswax-lined terracotta vessel used for making wine. The qvevri is filled with grapes, their skins and pips, and sometimes the stems too. Fermentation in the open qvevri relies on wild yeast. Geothermal regulation keeps the fermentation and wine at a constant, cool temperature. As the wine ferments, the qvevri’s conical shape promotes circulation and clarifies the wine naturally. After fermentation, the qvevri is sealed with a wooden lid and beeswax or clay. They are opened anywhere between a few months and a few years later for the wine to be transferred into another qvevri or bottles for further aging, or to be consumed immediately.

Outside of Gerogia, it is more common in the wine industry to use the term anfora or amphora (amphorae for plural) to refer to the clay vessel used for making wine. However, in Georgia, it is important to call a qvevri a qvevri as it is a symbol of their culture. In 2013, the UNESCO declared Georgia’s ancient tradition of making wine in qvevri as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Qvevri found outside the Pheasant’s Tears winery in Kakheti, Georgia. The size of qvevri can range from a few hundred to thousands of liters.

 

What is Orange Wine?

Let’s get this straight first: in Georgia, it is more common for people to refer to this style of wine as amber wine. We, too, prefer to use the term amber wine. However, outside of Georgia, people generally call it orange wine.

Nothing to do with the citrus fruit, orange wine is made from white wine grapes. While white wine is fermented from white grape juice with little to no skin contact, orange wine is fermented with the skins and seeds, and sometimes even with the stems. The color of a wine comes less from the flesh and juice than from the skin. For that reason, the skins of white grapes impart an amber hue to orange wine.

Besides imparting color, the seeds, skins, and stems provide tannins—a dry, grippy quality found in some red wines—to orange wine. When drinking orange wine, expect the slight astringency of a red wine and the crispness of a white. Just like all other wines, orange wines differ widely depending on the grape variety, terroir, and winemaking style. But as a general guide, they are medium- to full- bodied, with robust characteristics of nuts, tea, and dried fruit. By virtue of its bold flavors, medium to high acidity, low alcohol, and significant body, it can be paired perfectly with various dishes—from the spicy, to umami, and salty.

Today, orange wine is being made in all parts of the world including Australia, Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Italy, Mexico, Slovenia, and the United States.

 

Introducing Georgian Qvevri Wine to Croatian Wine Lovers

After several months of promoting our book Uncorking the Caucasus in Georgia and Armenia, we finally left the region in November and made a brief detour to Macedonia to attend the inaugural Skopje Wine Salon (organized by our dear friend Ivana Simjanovska), before returning to Croatia. From Tbilisi the capital of Georgia, we brought along four bottles of Georgian qvevri wines that we were planning to share with a special group of wine lovers in Croatia. The group consisted of the top Vivino users in Croatia as well as Nenad Trifunović, an established wine blogger who runs the website vinopija.com (in Croatian).

While not new to amber wine (there are several Croatian winemakers who are making white wine with some skin contact), this was the first time that all eight Croatian wine lovers are tasting Georgian amber wine made in the qvevri. 

Our Selection of Georgian Qvevri Wines

The wines were served in an intentional sequence: from a few days of skin contact (something we expect everyone will enjoy) to deep amber, tannic wine that saw many months of skin contact (something that challenges conventional beliefs).

Nikoladzeebis Marani, Tsitska-Tsolikouri, 2015
Winemaker: Ramaz Nikoladze
Miscellaneous Notes: Ramaz Nikoladze is one of the big names in Georgia. He makes only around 3,000 bottles every year. His Tsolikouri was selected by Carla Capalbo as the Favourite Wine of 2015 at the Decanter’s 40th Anniversary celebration. For a mammoth-looking guy, his wines are surprisingly gentle.
Tasting Notes: Prominent but workable volatile acidity that flatters the aroma of dried flower and ripe apricot. A little volatile acidity really highlights the typical ripe or dried fruit flavor of amber wine; too much will obviously swamp the beauty. Gentle tannins and green tea-like astringency hit the mid-end palate. A delicate amber wine that makes a safe introduction for those who are new to this wonderful world of skin contact.

With winemaker Ramaz Nikoladze at Vino Underground in Tbilisi, Georgia.

Gotsa Family Wines, Chinuri, 2015
Winemaker: Beka Gotsadze
Miscellaneous Notes: Recently, Beka pioneered a heat treatment system to clean his qvevri and combat the big, bad brett—most commonly known as the “funky smell” in amber wine. He’s also one of the few winemakers in Georgia who is currently making pét-nat wines. The first vintage of his pét-nat was released in December 2016.
Tasting Notes: Allegedly one of the most popular wines to be served at the recent RAW WINE New York 2016. Tropical juiciness perked up by summer citrus brims the nose! What fun! The flavors are juicy, too, in the mouth and flawlessly moves into an imminent white-tea finish. A touch of gingery bitterness lingers. This is an amber wine that can be easily dismissed as simple and approachable, but start shifting attention to the structure and transition, let it aerate for awhile, and you can find many nuances to it.

Gotsa winery’s Beka Gotsadze opening a bottle of pét-nat that is still fermenting in the bottle. Do not try this at home. Seriously.

Lagvinari, Goruli Mtsvane, 2013
Winemaker: Dr Eko Glonti
Miscellaneous Notes: Cardiovascular surgeon-turned-geologist-turned-winemaker, Eko is arguably our favorite wine producer in Georgia. He started making wine five years ago with the encouragement of Isabelle Legeron MW (organizer of RAW WINE).
Tasting Notes: The smell of a Chinese celebration—goji berry, gooseberry, orange peel, fig, and an undefined red fruit underlying. The palate reflects the nose with complementary tannins that outline the ripe fruit notes.

The Lagvinari wine cellar is located in the basement of Dr Eko Glonti’s house in Tbilisi, Georgia. Here’s him selecting the treats for the evening.

Tsikhelishvili Wines, Rkatsiteli, 2013
Winemaker: Aleksi Tsikhelishvili
Miscellaneous Notes: No background information as we haven’t got the chance to visit the winery.
Tasting Notes: Raisin and prune on the nose. Sherry-like with pronounced volatile acidity. Almost hard to differentiate from a red wine if tasted blind. The front palate is gentle and the body is medium. When the wine sets in the mouth, draw some air in and you’ll notice the citrus and stone fruit flavors along with tannins hitting hard on the mid palate, defying the earlier assumption that it could be a light red. A powerful amber wine with black tea-like astringency and mouth-coating ripe fruit flavors.

We didn’t get the chance to visit the Tsikhelishvili’s winery yet, but this was the night when we fell in love with his wine. We were having dinner at Azarphesha restaurant in Tbilisi and our dear friend John Wurdeman picked out a bottle of Tsikhelishvili Rkatsiteli for us to try.

Georgian Qvevri Wine Against the Croatian Palate

Many of our Croatian friends commented on how “alive” and how much “energy” the Georgian qvevri wines possessed.

We continued the night with a blind tasting of six different varietal red wines made out of Teran, an indigenous variety from Istria, Croatia; the round-up will be shared in a future article. As for the qvevri wine tasting: surprisingly, it was the last bottle, Tsikhelishvili Wines Rkatsiteli 2013, that was crowned the favorite of the night. We said “surprisingly” because we had assumed that the wine would be the most difficult to understand—with its extreme oxidative style, black tea-like tannins, and dried fruit characteristics. As it turned out, most people appreciated that wine most because it reminded them of a red wine. Overall, everyone enjoyed at least two out of the four wines, except one person who drinks only reds. Many of our Croatian friends commented on how “alive” and how much “energy” the Georgian qvevri wines possessed. We were delighted with the way the wines showed overall.

One of our favorite things to do is introducing new wines to enthusiasts and experienced palates. It is always fun to share gems from the unheralded regions of the wine world with fellow wine lovers. Georgian qvevri wines are the most fun, yet challenging, to present to wine lovers. When these wines are done well, they give flavors and experiences that are unparalleled. At a time when words like “raw wine”, “natural wine”, and “wine with a sense of place” are gaining traction on the world stage, the Georgian wines are the perfect candidate to offer diversity and novelty that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.

You May Also Enjoy
The Unstoppable Progress in the Georgian Wine Scene
Saperavi: Georgia’s Flagship Red Wine Grape
A Brief History of Wines from the Caucasus
UNESCO: Ancient Georgian traditional Qvevri wine-making method

Special thanks to Bornstein Wine Bar and Shop for hosting us.
The ideas expressed in this article are personal opinions and are not associated with any sponsors or business promotions.

The post An Introduction to Georgian Qvevri Wine in Zagreb appeared first on Wine Travel.

For a listing of articles and videos on Georgian wines and wine travel in Georgia, check out our page Uncorking the Caucasus. To purchase the Kindle or paperback copy of Uncorking the Caucasus: Wines from Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia, please head to this Amazon product page.

In traditional Georgian winemaking, fermentation and aging happen in the qvevri (pronounce “kway-vree”)–an egg-shaped, beeswax-lined clay vessel that is buried underground up to the neck. The qvevri is filled with grapes, their skins and pips, and sometimes the stems too. Fermentation in the open qvevri relies on wild yeast instead of inoculated yeast. Geothermal regulation keeps the fermentation and wine at a constant, cool temperature. As the wine ferments, the qvevri’s conical shape promotes circulation and clarifies the wine naturally. After fermentation, the qvevri is sealed with a wooden lid and beeswax or clay. It is opened anywhere between a few months and a few years later for the wine to be bottled or consumed immediately.

Currently, there are over 200 commercial producers in Georgia, ranging from large wineries and export giants like Badagoni and Teliani Valley, to extremely small, artisanal producers. Depending on the source, commercial qvevri wine is said to be around 10 percent of the total Georgian wine production. Most commercial qvevri wines are “natural wines”, made with little to no intervention and no modern contraptions; this means the wine is made with organic grapes and vinified without heavy machinery, selected yeast, blocked malolactic fermentation, additives, and fining agents.

Grapes in a qvevri.

When we first arrived in Georgia, we had no idea what to expect from its wines and ancient winemaking method.  A qvevri wine producer that kept coming up in conversations and social media was Pheasant’s Tears. The winery was started by American artist, John Wurdeman, who moved to Georgia in 1996.

Check out our video interview with John Wurdeman here.

When John started making wine alongside eighth-generation Georgian winemaker Gela Patalishvili, he had no idea what to name it. After sampling the wine, a local told John that it reminded him of a Georgian legend. The legend speaks of a wine so fine that it makes pheasants cry. With that, John found the name for his winery.

Pheasant’s Tears is making boundary-pushing wines that constantly raise the bar for what is possible in Georgia. Their first harvest in 2009 included a few autochthonous grapes that had not been commercially bottled for hundreds of years. All of Pheasant’s Tears wines are fermented and matured in the qvevri. The winery is near the medieval hilltop town of Sighnaghi, in the Kakheti wine region. We highly recommend trying everything in Pheasant’s Tears portfolio to get an understanding of Georgian qvevri wines. All the wines can be tasted at the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant in Sighnaghi and Vino Underground in Tbilisi—both places also carry a collection of minimal-intervention wines from all over the world.

Exotic Wine Travel’s Choice:
Pheasant’s Tears, Chinuri, Dry Unfiltered White Wine, 2014

The Pheasant’s Tears Chinuri 2014 was the first wine in Georgia to completely knock our socks off. We first drank this wine at the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant where we enjoyed a seemingly endless flow of excellent Georgian dishes and wines made of indigenous varieties such as Tsolikouri, Mtsvane, Rkatsiteli, Tavkveri, Saperavi, and—of course—Chinuri.

Even though it is labeled as “White Wine”, this Pheasant’s Tears Chinuri should be considered an amber wine/orange wine because it was macerated. It also has a golden hue. The flavor profile is made up of ripe tropical fruits (almost like Hawaiian Punch), peach, melon, yellow flowers, and a surprising touch of red fruit characteristics. In the mouth, it is delicate with a slightly frizzante sensation on the tongue that guides the flavors over the palate into a tangy, citrus finish. The acidity and smorgasbord of fruit flavors make it a refreshing and expressive wine. This is THE wine we would recommend to people who wish to try qvevri wine for the first time.

Find or buy Pheasant’s Tears wines at Wine Searcher.

About Chinuri

Chinuri is a wine grape from the Kartli wine region in east Georgia, but it is also planted in Kakheti. The name “Chinuri” is derived from the Georgian word “Chinebuli”, which means “excellent”. It is not a widely planted variety, and you will have to do some serious searching to find a varietal wine made from it. Because of its relatively high acidity, Chinuri is also used to make sparkling wine.

You May Also Enjoy

• Pheasant’s Tears Chitistvala 2015
• The Unstoppable Progress in the Georgian Wine Scene
• An Introduction to Georgian Qvevri Wine in Zagreb
• A Brief History of Wines from the Caucasus

Please note that the opinions expressed in this article are unsolicited and have not been paid for in any way by governmental bodies, enterprises, or individuals. We do not sell editorial content as that would destroy the legitimacy of our reviews and the trust between Exotic Wine Travel and its readers. On occasion, we extend the option of purchasing the wines we review or/and the products we spotlight. Some of these product links are set up through affiliate programs, which means Exotic Wine Travel gets referral credits if you choose to purchase these items via the links we provide.

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