Georgian Wine for Freedom
Georgian wine in search of identity
Over the Soviet and post-Soviet period, roughly until about the 2000s, Georgia was associated with Stalin’s homeland and the semi-Soviet politician Eduard Shevardnadze, while Georgian wine would be identified with cheap Alazani Valley-brand products at worst, and with Stalin’s favorite semi-sweets at best. Even today, at some major fairs, especially in China, Georgian wine still features Stalin's silhouette on the label because a considerable portion of the industry consists of large wineries directly or indirectly linked to pro-Russian oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Nonetheless, since the 2000s, Georgian wine has been in constant search for its new identity, enjoying support from individuals and organizations featured at exhibitions such as Renaissance des Appellations, Viniveri, The Real Wine Fair, Les Caves de Pyrene, Les Pénitentes, and others. Before Georgian wine was focused on a rigid appellation system that omitted lots of interesting, underrated places, but the new movement emphasizes the appreciation of specific terroirs. As early as the 2010s, countries like Italy, Spain, France, Japan, the United States, and Australia became familiar with Georgia’s terroirs and specific regions, such as Kardanakhi, Akhoebi, Nakhshirghele, Chardakhi, Artana, Erketi, and others. However, in Georgia, it also became clear that instead of replicating winemaking norms that were popular in Europe, such as direct pressing or wood aging whites, it was natural for us to build on our use of local qvevri (amphora) wine, and endemic varieties. The modern world now hails the philosophy we received from our ancestors as ethical, sustainable, organic, and biodynamic viticulture.
Inadvertently, fertile ground for the emergence of small wineries was secured in Georgia after 2006, when Russia suspended the importation of Georgian wines, with industrial winemaking facing a rough patch. Needless to say, the key motive was political animosity toward the then authorities of Georgia, though high levels of pesticides in wine were named as the official reason.
In terms of scope, Georgian industrial wine comprised over 10% of Russia's wine market until 2006, while the Russian market constituted 80% of Georgian wine exports. Clearly, the embargo dealt a heavy blow to both industrial viticulture and grape growers whose grapes were processed by factories in the country’s main wine regions like Kakheti, Racha, Lechkhumi, etc. However, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, they say—one of the most efficient solutions discovered by grape growers was simply making their own wine.
Russia lifted the embargo on Georgian wines in 2013 under a new government in Tbilisi, one more loyal toward the occupier from the get-go, but to this day, a toast is jokingly raised in Georgia to one Gennady Onishchenko, the official whose signature on the document embargoing Georgian wines turned out to be a blessing in disguise. With the embargo in force, the regulations for registering wineries became simplified. Many households in rural areas were now able to transform their family traditions into commercial endeavors, bringing in considerable profits. Add to that the recognition of the qvevri winemaking method as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity by UNESCO in 2013 and a multidisciplinary study published in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) scientific magazine proving that the evidence of viticulture and viniculture discovered in Georgia is the oldest in the world. Consequently, Georgia, as the 'cradle of wine' and the 'land of amber wine,' assumed a new, unique role in the world of wine.
Wine liberalization
The pioneers introducing new yet ancient Georgian wine to the world included seasoned grape growers with their fingers worked to the bone: Nikoladze, Iago, Soliko, Lekso Tsikhelishvili, Zaza Darsavelidze, and others. Since the mid-2010s, vineyard-keeping welcomed enthusiastic young people leaving the capital who headed towards small villages in search of different values, immigrants driven to Georgia by their love of local wine and singing, and women boldly stating their preference for waging an uphill struggle in vineyards over fiddling with paperwork and numbers, despite the opposition they encounter daily in traditional patriarchal society. In a way, it was the second phase, a new wave encompassing small projects by enthusiasts, with a statement that pruning grapevines, washing qvevri vessels, and making wine no longer falls under the exclusive purview of Georgian men, who up until recently were seen as the masters of this trade and continuers of the relevant traditions.
A hundred years passed, but the question remains: occupation vs freedom.
Until Georgia's Soviet occupation in 1921, the Republic of Georgia flourished as an excellent, albeit short-lived, European-style liberal democracy. According to the 1918 Constitution, Georgia, as a secular country, banned prioritizing and financing one religion or another from the state budget. The enlighteners of that era even spoke about adopting the experience of democratically electing the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Christian Church. The republic's first legislative body (1919–1921) included five women MPs, one ethnic Armenian among them. Women were also represented in the capital's self-government during the same period. Among them, we may single out ethnic Azerbaijani Peri-Khanum Sofieva as the world’s first elected Muslim representative, a member of the Tbilisi Municipal Union in 1918.
Soviet occupation not only undermined these European aspirations but also impaired viticulture. In some regions, grapevines were not considered a cost-effective cultivar at all. In Guria, Adjara, and Samegrelo, for example, they were replaced with citrus or tea. Equally malicious activities occurred in Kakheti, Kartli, Racha, Imereti, and other regions supplying the Soviet Union with wine. Tons of grapevines from Georgia’s diverse viticulture zones were dumped in reservoirs to produce a beverage of such lousy quality that the winemakers themselves steered away from trying it—as seen in one famous Georgian movie, Falling Leaves. The genuinely exceptional biodiversity of Georgian grapevines, reaching about 525 varieties, was nearly laid to waste. Disease and frost-resistant grapes that retained industrial value, such as Rkatsiteli and Saperavi in the east and Tsolikouri in the west, were grown, but other varieties became fewer and far between.
About a hundred years after the Soviet occupation, Georgia and the Black Sea Region faced similar challenges again. With a war breaking out in Ukraine, Georgian wines have begun to be exported to Russia at an alarmingly rapid rate, with most of the wine produced by industrial manufacturers associated with the oligarch Ivanishvili. Consequently, this field grows fatally dependent on a country where one man’s whims may threaten Georgia’s entire economy.
Even though the Russian ties and influences on the political establishment put together by Ivanishvili were evident since day one, mass protests in Georgia ensued in March 2023, when the Georgian Dream ruling party endorsed in the parliament an absolutely grotesque, ridiculous Russian-style bill—the so-called “law on foreign agents.” The proposed legislation obligated noncommercial organizations and media outlets with over 20% of their revenues provided by international donors, such as USAID, the UN, the World Bank, the EU, private donors, and others, to join the so-called “registry for foreign influence agents.” Among others, this law applied to wine associations and guilds that operated relying nearly solely on support from European or American foundations.
Although Ivanishvili was initially forced to yield to both domestic and external pressure and withdraw the bill, disinformation-driven media outlets loyal to the government launched a character assassination campaign, stigmatizing these organizations, human rights defenders, and activists and labeling them as foreign agents. In the summer of 2024, the ruling party repackaged, reinitiated and adopted the bill despite mass protests. These nefarious acts were followed by the October 26 elections, which were stolen by every means possible, including voter intimidation, blackmail, manipulations involving the electoral roll, so-called carousels, etc. These violations were described scrupulously in OSCE/ODIHR (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights) reports, which is why the international community, with rare exceptions, doesn't recognize Georgia's "authorities."
On November 28, 2024, Shalva Papuashvili, the chairman of Georgia’s self-proclaimed parliament, made a manipulative statement arguing that Georgia’s European integration would cause us to lose Russia’s formidable market, killing our viticulture and winemaking sector. Despite major concerns from the field’s professionals, no one remembered this statement a few hours later because the self-proclaimed prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, called for a halt on Georgia's European integration altogether.
Numerous surveys show that over 80% of Georgia’s population is in favor of the country’s European integration, which is why his words angered 200,000 people who took to the streets. Although this protest was peaceful from the outset, police and special forces used extremely brutal force to trample it down. Hundreds of citizens have been savagely beaten, detained, and unlawfully fined, while not a single police officer nor civilians abusing protesters have been brought to justice. Among those roughed up are representatives of the wine community: upright citizens peacefully participating in rallies and armed with their only weapons, their own honor, and flags of Georgia and the European Union.
Following the bloody repressions of November and December, the ruling party changed its strategy. If before the regime was focused on mass expressions of physical force, now their goal is to fill the budget deficit with money from the protesting citizens’ pockets. This absurd law was ratified to enforce an administrative penalty for insulting public servants, including by calling them corrupt (penalty: 1500-4000 GEL, i.e., 550-1500 USD), participating in doorstep protests (penalty: 5000 GEL, i.e., 1800 USD), wearing any kind of mask, including medical, in rallies (penalty: 2000 GEL, i.e. 710 USD), unauthorized traffic obstruction (penalty: 5000 GEL, i.e. 1800 USD). About 700,000 GEL is channeled every day (!) into the state budget in the form of fines paid from the pockets of participants of the rallies organized in front of the parliament. Not a single appeal against these penalties has been upheld so far. Some members of the wine community—such as winemakers, bar owners, sommeliers, and others who are especially active in this protest—have been fined. Each fine means about 150 bottles of wine, so for many winemakers, a penalty for participating in a rally is equivalent to five, six, or even more months’ pay.
What will happen tomorrow?
Given the turbulence the world is presently going through, it’s hard to tell what will happen in Georgia tomorrow—even meaning literally after today. Needless to say, we focus on victory. However, in private conversations, we also consider new places to start vineyards or open wine bars, in case the worst-case scenario plays out, and a hunting season targeting people like us is announced in this country.
For now, wine bars have nothing short of ceased operating, and domestic sales are practically suspended. Compared to previous winters places like ღVino Underground, Saamuri in Fabrika, and others remain almost unvisited—and it makes sense because their regular patrons now attend protest rallies every night. Since being courageous enough to join the strike, retailer 8000 Vintages has been under unprecedented fire from Facebook trolls. Wine associations refused to sign up for the registry for foreign agents, consequently expecting 10,000 GEL in fines.
We expect wine tourism to plummet in the country because of significant reputational damage, which will have an especially negative impact on smaller wineries with bank obligations; those not sympathetic toward Russian buses abounding during the tourist season.
In a 2015 interview, Decanter writer Paul White told me that Georgian wine is like a genie in a bottle that will one day liberate itself to showcase its diverse, wonderful capabilities. And it only makes sense. If Georgia survives as an independent country, it will have a lot more to show and discover besides 8000 vintages, the qvevri, amber wine, and 525 varieties—as long as we survive, and the vintages of our small villages and slopes, our authenticity and stories, do not end up in those rusted reservoirs.
Keto Ninidze
After having graduated from Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University and having earned a Master's degree in Humanities (in 2006), Keto Ninidze continued her studies at Ilia State University and began to work on her PhD thesis. In 2015, after a ten-year scientific and educational practice in Literary Studies, she took up wine journalism and started writing about wine. In the same 2015, she moved to a small Georgian town, Martvili, settled in a century-old house of her husband's ancestors, and founded there a family winery – Oda, to start making her experimental wines.
Oda is a small, family-based winery that produces 6000-8000 bottles per year and exports most of the wines internationally, in 11 countries on 4 continents. Oda was one of the pioneers who revived old Megrelian and Western Georgian indigenous grape varieties and introduced Samegrelo as a forgotten wine region to the wine society.
With her writings and activism, Keto Ninidze always tries to respond uniquely to a patriarchal culture and male-dominated profession - wine-making- and to support beginner women in the field. In her book "A Gently Fermenting Revolution," which is about Georgian female wine-makers, Keto tries to focus on a woman in viticulture and viniculture, showing what were the main changes women in Georgia's wine culture. Her second book "Apocryphal Toasts' is an attempt to articulate women's voice and perception in the process of doing vineyard and wine work.
Translation courtesy of Irakli Beridze.
Photos courtesy of Adrian Scoffham, https://www.adrianscoffham.com, https://www.instagram.com/adrianpure/