Travelling Around Britain and the World
Showing posts with label Silk Road-Caucasus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silk Road-Caucasus. Show all posts

Sunday 17 August 2014

Tasting Georgian Wine: An Interlude in From the Caspian to the Black Sea

The Winemaking and Wine Regions of Georgia and an Assessement of the Wines we have Tasted

Georgian Winemaking - the Qvervi


Georgia
The Georgians are convinced (and they may actually be right) that they invented wine making; there is certainly solid evidence that they were at it 7,000 years ago. Their technique involved treading grapes in stone or wooden vats and then putting everything – juice, skins, stalks and pips - into a clay pot known as a qvervi. The qvervi was buried in the ground for temperature control and covered but not sealed. The juice fermented on the skins and stalks and stayed on them far longer than in the western European tradition. The resulting wines tended to be oxidised and with a flavour of the clay pot - and the whites were brown (the colour of tea was deemed appropriate). Little has changed, though they now refer to their white wines as 'amber.' Their taste is unfamiliar to the western European drinker, though still much appreciated by Georgians, to the extent that they have had the qvervi (almost pronounced querry – there is a nod in the direction of the first ‘v’ and no more than a token effort at the second) inscribed in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Giant Qvervi, Twins Old Winery, Napareuli

Georgia has over 500 grape varieties. Most are grown nowhere else, some are so local they are unique to a single village, though only around 40 are used commercially. Subtle differences between grape varieties are of great interest to modern wine makers and wine buffs, though in the past, when wine was made in a qvervi, stored in animal skins and drunk from a horn they could hardly have been noticeable.

Brand new qvervis ready for the new vintage, Twins Old Cellar, Napareuli

Georgian Wine Regions

Georgian wines are described by region of production, sometimes down to the village and individual vineyard, and grape variety or varieties.

The designated wine regions are:

Kakhetti
Kartli
Imereti
Racha and Svaneti
Ajara

We enjoyed four tastings, all in Kakhetti, though we tasted wines from Imereti and Kartli as well as Kakhetti

1) Khareba Wines, Kvareli

15/08/2014

Khareba is a large company which owns vineyards in several regions, has two wineries and a large storage facility at Kvareli in Kakhetti where our tasting took place

Like most of the larger companies they make both Georgian-style wines and European-style wines. ‘European’, in this context meaning pretty well anywhere in the world that is not Georgia.

I was able to note the grape variety and (mostly) the region, but I do not know how these wines fit into the Khareba range of wines, nor their retail price.

Tasting room, Khareba Winery

Rkatsiteli is one the most widely planted grapes in Georgia. Unlike most of the others it is widespread throughout Eastern Europe. Like many others I have previously drunk Bulgarian Rkatsiteli - it was readily available on the British market in the 1980s. ‘Monastery’ Rkatsiteli is made using Georgian methods. Deep yellow rather than brown, its weight is mouth filling but despite its presence the flavour, slips quickly off the palate leaving only a tug of tannin - mildly disconcerting for a white wine. ‘It is,’ we were told, ‘a good wine for old people at breakfast’. I am not convinced it would be wise for this old person to take up breakfast wine drinking.

Their 'European' Rkatsiteli from western Georgia was light, almost colourless. It had good fresh acidity, light fruit and a real crispness. This wine would sell in Europe where the traditional style would struggle.

Krakhuna is a variety grown almost uniquely in Imereti. Vinified European-style it was a good deal solider than the Rkatsiteli and with slightly more colour but without a great deal of character. Lynne thought it would be a better wine with food, and she is probably right.

Oak barrels, Khareba Winery, Kvareli

As the red colour of ‘European’ wines comes from contact with the skins, Georgian-style reds are closer to the mainstream than the whites

Saperavi, the main red grape, has red flesh and juice as well as skin. The wines have a colour so intense it is as much a dye as a wine. Made in Georgian style it is rich and tannic with a fruitiness not unlike Cabernet. It was an impressive wine, but not as impressive as...

….the Premium Saperavi, European style with 20% aged in oak barrels. A step up from the regular Saperavi, this is a wine of real class.

We also tasted an Aladesturi from Imereti. Lighter than the Saperavi, and not just in colour, it had a hint of sparkle and a touch of sweetness. An easy drinking wine, it was reminiscent of an Italian Dolcetto.

A rosé blended from Saperavi, Aladesturi and Ostkhanuri, was clean and fruity, but lacked the acidity to balance its fruit.

Twins Old Cellar, Napareuli

15/08/2014

Saperavi vines (I think), Twins Old Winery, Napareuli

Napareuli is not far from Khareba, but this is a much smaller concern.

Georgian-style Rkatsiteli was darker and even heavier than the Khareba version. The level of oxidisation and tannin is such that this was the most ‘alien’ wine we tasted

Their European-style Rkatsiteli may have been taken off the skins and stalks but was fermented in a qvervi, so it still exhibited the flavour of the clay pot. We thought this is a rather clumsy wine, neither one thing nor the other.

Saperavi, Georgian-style Rkatsiteli, European style Rkatsiteli
Twins Old Winery, Napareuli

The Saperavi was more basic than Khareba’s, still rich and tannic but without the extra dimension of fruit. Although it is nothing special, I would thoroughly enjoy this wine with a winter stew.

Tsinindali Palace, Tsinindali

16/08/2014

Kakhuri Vineyard, Tsinandali.

Another qvervi made ‘European-style’ wine blended from Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane. Despite the clay pot they managed to retain the lightness and freshness of the grape, though they lost the nose.

Wine Cellar, Tsinandali Palace

Pheasant's Tears Winery, Signaghi.

16/08/2014

This Georgian-Swedish-American concern aims to produce wines so rare and beautiful you would think you were drinking pheasant's tears. When the Russian market dried up after the 2008 war the owners of Pheasant's Tears decided that for export purposes their USP was that Georgian wine was different, so they have concentrated on making organic Georgian-style wines as well as they possibly can be made. Like many wineries Pheasant’s Tears is run by enthusiasts, and their enthusiasm is infectious. I wish them well with their endeavour.

We had lunch at the winery, accompanied by four wines and finishing with a chacha (which is not a dance).

Standing on a qvervi, Pheasant's Tears Winery, Signaghi

The 2013 Chinuri from Kartli was a traditional amber white. The contact time on the skins had been limited so some of the fruit had been retained. The cleanest, crispest traditional-style wine we tasted.

Rkatsiteli from the nearby Alazani Valley was also tea coloured. The nose is strong, fresh and distinctive by qvervi standards. It has good acidity but the tannins are so prominent it could pass for a red if tasted blindfold.

The vine filled Alazani Valley, Kakhetti

Kartli Tavkveri. Tavkveri is a female vine – most are hermaphrodite – and needs to be planted alongside the male Chinuri to produce grapes. (Does Chinuri also need Tavkveri? No one said that it does. Is this silence unconscious sexism or is there some biological quirk I know nothing of?) The nose was powerful and earthy to start with evolving into plumminess. This is a big deep wine with lots of tannin. Winemaker John Wurdeman says that 6 to 9 months after bottling the tannins resolve into flavours of toasted almonds and cherries. I cannot comment on that, but we did find that red meat tamed the tannin, allowing the fruit and acidity free reign. This is a rather fine wine.

The Kakhetti Saparavi was a touch overshadowed and not, for once, the star of the show. It was a big wine, but lacked the fruit and structure of the Tavkveri.

Pheasant’s Tears Chacha. Chacha is distilled from the residue of winemaking, like grappa in Italy or Bagaceira in Portugal. At 48% this is fiery stuff, but with an intense flavour. It has a touch of the cowshed, as all such spirits have, but it also has real finesse. We bought a bottle. [update 24/02/15 We opened it at Christmas. There is still a little left - it will last to the end of our Lenten abstinence, but not much longer.]

Pheasant's Tears Chacha

That was the end of our wine tasting, though there was plenty of wine drinking during the following week. In restaurants, we learned, bottled wine was relatively expensive. Georgians drink a great deal of wine, most of it brown ‘white’ wine, but very little of it ever sees a bottle. We drank ‘homemade wine’ by the glass at lunchtime and by the litre in the evening and although it was a different wine drinking experience, we found little difficulty in developing a taste for it.

From the Caspian to the Black Sea




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Saturday 16 August 2014

Telavi to Tbilisi, via Sighnaghi, Part 6 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

A King's Castle, a Gentleman's Palace, the Nunnery of Georgia's most Important Saint and a Fine Winery

Telavi

A Little History

Georgia
Telavi

In morning sunshine, central Telavi looked rather more cheerful than yesterday's first impression had suggested.

After the destruction wrought by the Persian Shah Abbas in the 17th century, his successor Nadir Shah (for whom the Topkapı Dagger was made, though he died before the gift was delivered) appointed local princes as kings of Kartli (central Georgia) and Kakheti (eastern Georgia).

Central Telavi, on a quiet summer Saturday morning

The appointment of Erekle II (also known as Heraclius) did not turn as Shah Abbas had hoped. Erekle united the kingdoms and from 1762 ruled them as a semi-independent state. He built the sizeable castle that occupies much of central Telavi. Unfortunately it was not open, so we had a look round the outside.

Telavi Castle


Telavi Castle

Erekle was generally a wise and forward looking ruler but overreached himself when he tried to free Imereti, a western Georgian kingdom, from the Turks. He sought Russian help in 1770, then Russian protection in 1783. Although apparently a good idea at the time, once the Russians had their foot in the door it was only a matter of time before they annexed Georgia in its entirety. A brief period of independence followed the First World War, but by 1922 the Red Army had incorporated Georgia into the new USSR and that was the end of independence until the USSR disintegrated in 1991.

Telavi Castle

In front of the castle is an equestrian statue of Erekle II. Dinara was dismissive, the Soviets threw up hundreds of such statues, she told us, paying lip service to Georgian history.

Erekle II outside his castle, Telavi

900 Year-Old Plane Tree

Opposite the statute is a plane tree, said to be 900 years old. The claim is unverifiable, but it is certainly the biggest plane tree I have ever seen. It is more than likely that it was already mature when Erekle started work on the castle and it has outlived him, not to mention the Soviet Union.

Lynne and a huge plane tree, Telavi

Although our destination was Tbilisi, we set off eastwards, back towards Azerbaijan,....

Telavi to Tbilisi via Sighnaghi

Tsinandali Palace

....stopping first at the Tsinandali Palace, in the wine village of that name. The Italianate palace was built by Prince Alexander Chavchavadze (1786-1846), son of Georgia's first ambassador to Russia and godson of Catherine the Great - though he became an anti-tsarist activist and poet.

Tsinindali Palace on the Chavchavadze Estate

Photographs were not permitted inside the house, but in the literary salon where he entertained Dumas and Pushkin you can step out onto the balcony and obey the letter, if not the spirit of the law.

Lynne and Dinara in the 'Literary Salon' Tsinindali Palace

The house passed to Alexander’s son David Chavchavadze, but the good fortune of the family came to a shuddering halt in 1854 when tribesmen from Dagestan ransacked the house, kidnapping 23 women and children, including David’s wife. To pay the substantial ransom demand, David borrowed money from the Tsar. When he could not manage the repayments the house passed to Tsar Alexander III, and the Russian royal family frequently spent their summers here. Despite this misfortune, the Chavchavadze family*[update at end] have continued to play a prominent role in Georgian life and politics.

The house is set in a garden in the ‘English Style'. At the end of the Garden is a winery built by Alexander's father. Beneath the house is a tasting room where we were offered a glass of Tsinandali wine (see Tasting Georgian Wines).

The 'English Garden' and the winery, Tsinandali Palace

Sighnaghi

Saint Nino and the Bodbe Nunnery

Sighnaghi

A little further east, near the small town of Sighnaghi is the Bodbe nunnery, the burial place of Saint Nino. St Georgia may be the Patron Saint of Georgia, but St Nino, is perhaps, even more important to Georgoan national identity. She is believed to have been a Greek speaking Roman from Cappadocia, and possibly a relative of St George, who arrived in Georgia ca 320 intent on converting the country to Christianity. Requiring a cross for her work she entered a nearby vineyard - there is usually one handy in Georgia - picked up a couple of vine twigs, tied them together with a lock of her hair and so invented the distinctive Georgian Grapevine Cross.

Nino's original Grapevine (allegedly), Tbilisi Sioni Cathedral, (thanks, Wikipedia)

She first converted King Merian III of Iberia (Iberia here meaning central Georgia, not Spain and Portugal) followed by the rest of the country, making Georgia the second country (after Armenia) to adopt Christianity as the state religion. Her work done, she retired to Bodbe and died there in 332, 338 or 340 depending on which source you read. The main church is 9th century though it has endured many makeovers, most notably in the 17th century. The detached bell tower is 18th century.

The old church, Bodbe Nunnery, Sighnaghi

A striking feature of Georgian (and Armenian) Christianity is that one church is never enough, and a second one is currently being built next to it. Wealthy people who want to show their piety and gratitude for their success build a church to the glory of God. Fair enough, but when there is already one perfectly adequate church why build another next-door? Could their piety be better shown by using the same money for good works? Do Georgians want a lesson in morality from me? No. At the bottom of the hill below the new church is a spring which miraculously appeared when Nino prayed at that spot and its waters are alleged to cure a variety of ailments.

The new church, Bodbe Nunnery, Sighnaghi

The Pheasant's Tears Winery

Sighnaghi itself is dramatically placed on a bluff above the wide Alazani Valley, but before taking a look around we had lunch at the Pheasant's Tears Winery. This Georgian-Swedish-American concern aims to produce wines so rare and beautiful you would think you were drinking pheasant's tears.

Sighnaghi

After a brief glance at the cellar and a look at more qvervis we sat down to eat. When the Russian market dried up after the 2008 war the owners of Pheasant's Tears decided that for export purposes their USP was that Georgian wine was different, so they have concentrated on making organic Georgian style wines as well as they possibly can be made. Like many wineries Pheasant’s Tears is run by enthusiasts, and their enthusiasm is infectious. I wish them well with their endeavour.

Lynne, me, qvervis (at our feet) and some bottles

To say that we had a different wine with every course would be true if Georgian food came in courses. We ate bread and cheese, aubergine purée, a chard/spinach dish, green salad, a melange of wild mushrooms, beef patties (do I mean burgers?) and chips. We drank four different wines - see my Georgian wine notes (Tasting Georgian wine) - ranging from good to excellent and finished with a glass of chacha, the Georgian version of grappa. We immediately felt the need to part with 30 Laris (£10.50) for a half litre bottle.

Well fed, we staggered out onto Sighnaghi's main drag where Lynne attempted to get run over by a man apparently unaware of the difference between a hill start and vertical take-off.

Sighnaghi City Wall and The Alazani Valley

Driving through the town and out to the end of the bluff we reached one of the 23 watch towers on Erekle II’s 4 km long encircling wall.

Watchtowers on Sighnaghi city wall

Perched high above the Alazani Valley, I find it hard to imagine any attacker even getting as far as the wall.

Sighnaghi city wall above the Alazani Valley

Central Sighnaghi

Back in town we dropped in on St George’s church, one of two Georgian Orthodox churches within the city walls. It is not particularly old, Sighnaghi was an 18th century new town, but it looks older.

St George's Church, Sighnaghi

We walked through the pleasant streets of the small town pausing at the war memorial, which has far too many names for such a small place.

Just part of Sighnaghi War Memorial - so many names for such a small town

We had by now travelled 50km in the wrong direction, so the journey back to Tbilisi took a couple of hours. The roads were good, though perhaps not quite as good as in Azerbaijan and the driving was a little wilder. We left the Alazani valley and crossed rich agricultural country - with the inevitable sprinkling of vineyards.

Leaving Sighnaghi

Tbilisi: Arrival and First Impressions

Tbilisi

We seemed to drop into Tbilisi. One minute the city was not there, then we dipped down, rounded a hairpin went back under the road and there it was. Eastern Tbilisi and the 'old town' are situated along a valley, in places almost a gorge.

Across the bridge to the old town, Tbilisi

Our hotel was near the old town and after settling in we took a walk past the bars and cafés that make up this area and continued past the Sioni Cathedral (of which more in the next post), which is built in a depression. Saturday evening mass was well attended with queues outside the door.....

Queue for Saturday Mass, Sioni Cathedral, Tbilisi

...and confession being heard in the precinct.

Hearing confession in the precinct, Sioni Cathedral, Tbilisi

Konka Station

We stopped to rehydrate at a bar called the Konka Station. The Konka was Tbilisi's old tram system and a retired tram car was parked outside. As the intense heat of the day began to wane and we became more and more comfortable where we were, the thought of walking back to the hotel and then coming out later to find dinner became increasingly unattractive. We called for the menu and another beer and ordered a khachapuri (cheese pie) and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. Although the Georgians are great wine drinkers, they brew a decent lager and eat an immense amount of their distinctively flavoured cheese. Norma and Wilson, whom we met in North Korea, have travelled extensively in the former Soviet republics. It is their opinion that khachapuri is actually addictive. They may be right.

*The family remains prominent and not just in Georgia. In October 2014 I spotted a newspaper obituary of David Chavchavadze. Born in London 1922, he moved to America in 1943. He was a writer and musician and for two decades a CIA officer in the Soviet Union division.



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Location: Sighnaghi, Georgia

Friday 15 August 2014

Into Georgia, The Vineyards of Kakheti: Part 5 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Sheki to the Georgian Border

In the morning we left our caravanserai….

Leaving the Caravanserai, Sheki

… under the stern but benign (?) gaze of Azerbaijan's late President Heydǝr Əliyev ….

Heydǝr Əliyev says 'Goodbye'

… and set off westwards towards Georgia. We travelled through flat agricultural land with the Caucasus to our right and behind them Dagestan and the rest of Russia. Away to our left behind lower hills lay Georgia. We would follow this plain jutting out between two ranges until Azerbaijan came to its end at the Lagodekhi border post.

The road was well made and smooth, as were all we encountered in the country. Zagatala and Balakǝn, the last two towns in Azerbaijan looked as neat and tidy as everywhere else, though here, for the first and only time in the Caucasus, we saw horses and carts on the roads, mainly moving loads of freshly dried hay. We passed the end of the road to the locally well-known mineral water producing town of Qax. I love the name, but ‘q’ is pronounced as a hard ‘g’ and ‘x’ as the ‘ch’ in ‘loch’ so it sounds more like a Klingon’s favourite food than the vocalisation of a duck.

The next stage of the journey, Sheki to Telavi

Into Georgia

At the border Yassim and Togrul were well enough known to be able to drive through the preliminary gate. We had our cases x-rayed and our passports stamped, then they drove us into no man's land. We made our farewells and trundled our cases across the invisible line into Georgia where we were welcomed by Dinara, our Georgian guide. It was like being handed over at the Glienicke Bridge in cold-war Berlin, if rather less tense.

Georgia

The Georgian formalities were minimal. We met Alex our driver who deposited our cases in the back of a large black BMW four by four and we set off into a new country, not forgetting to set our watches back an hour because although both countries are in the same time zone Azerbaijan moves its clocks forward for summer and Georgia does not.

From the border post we drove through a series of contiguous villages which looked less prosperous than their Azeri neighbours. We were in now in the valley of the Alazani River in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti. The valley can be described, without serious exaggeration, as a hundred kilometre long vineyard. Unsurprisingly our first stop was for a wine-tasting.

Khareba Cellars, Kvareli

Khareba is one of Georgia’s largest wine producers. They have vineyards in Kakheti and in the western region of Imereti and own two wineries as well as the storage facility at Kvareli that we visited.

We had a false start, coming through the wrong gate, and having a lengthy walk to find the entrance to the cellars which occupy 8km of tunnels dug into the hillside.

Entrance to the tunnels, Khareba Winery,  Kvareli

The tunnels keep the wine at a steady 10º throughout the year and we walked past thousands of slumbering bottles on our way to the museum and tasting area.

Maturing wine, Khareba Winery,  Kvareli

The Georgians are convinced (and they may actually be right) that wine making was invented by Georgians; there is certainly solid evidence that they were at it 7,000 years ago. Their technique involves treading grapes in stone or wooden vats and then putting everything – juice, skins, stalks and pips - into a clay pot known as a qvervi. The qvervi is buried in the ground for temperature control and is covered but not sealed. The juice ferments on the skins and then stays on them for far longer than in the western European tradition. The resulting wines have a flavour from the clay pot and are heavily oxidized, the whites are brown - the colour of tea is deemed appropriate - and the taste is unfamiliar to the western European wine drinker, though much appreciated by Georgians. The reds are more mainstream but the best red grape, Saperavi, has so much colour - having red flesh and juice as well red skin - that it is as much a dye as a drink.

Vat for treading grapes, Khareba Winery, Kvareli

Georgia has over five hundred native grape varieties, but subtle differences are lost in the qvervi. In the past they would have also been transported in a goatskin and drunk from a cow’s horn - I doubt much of the character of the grape would have survived that! There are now wines made by 'the European method' too, though at some wineries that still involves the use of a qvervi. For an appreciation of the wines we tasted here and elsewhere see the Tasting Georgian Wine post. At Khareba we tasted the produce of several different grape varieties vinified using both European and Georgian methods. The overall standard was high, and one or two were excellent.

About to start tasting, Khareba Winery, Kvareli

After our tasting we took the lift up to the roof - or ground level as we had been down a hole – to the restaurant and chose a table on the terrace overlooking the Alazani valley. Knowing we were eating in our guesthouse that evening and aware that Georgian tradition demands that the meal would be vast, we settled for a light lunch, ordering one green and one chicken salad. We expected the chicken salad to be slices of meat with some foliage, but it was just chicken, somewhat reminiscent of rillettes, or maybe a Lao meat salad. We washed this down with water, we had already drunk wine and there was another tasting to go, so restraint seemed wise.

Gremi, the Church of the Archangel (front) and the Tower Palace

Gremi

Gremi, a little further up the valley, was the capital of Kakheti from 1466 to 1672. Georgian history is, to say the least, complicated. Separate eastern and western kingdoms in antiquity were united in the eleventh century leading to a Georgian golden age which lasted, despite intervention of the Mongols, until the start of the fifteenth century. Weakened by the Black Death and buffeted by repeated visits from Tamerlane and his hordes, Georgia fracturing into four petty kingdoms of which Kakheti was the easternmost. The tower palace, on a bluff above the road, is a small, modest palace as befits a small, modest kingdom.

Inside the Tower Palace, Gremi

The Church of the Archangels beside it was built by King Levan in 1565 and the frescoes painted shortly afterward.

Inside the Church of the Archangels, Gremi

There was also a winery within the main complex (well this is Georgia) ….

Old qvervi in the winery Gremi

...while at the foot of the bluff are the remains of a caravansary, baths and market. What we saw was largely restoration; the originals were reduced to rubble by the Persian Shah Abbas in 1616. The eastern Georgian kingdoms were under constant pressure from the Persian Empire while the western kingdoms were harried by the Ottomans.

Lynne outside the restored caravansarai, Gremi

Twins Winery, Napareuli

At Napareuli we dropped in on the much smaller Twins Winery where they were kind enough to show us around. They have Georgia's, and hence the world's largest qvervi, but they use it for showing an introductory film rather than for wine making.

The world's biggest qvervi, Twins Winery, Napareuli

We saw the vineyards and inspected their brand new qvervis set in a concrete floor ready for this year's vintage.

Brand new qvervis ready for this year's harvest, Twins Winery, Napareuli

Less willing to compromise with western techniques, they even make their ‘European style’ wines in qvervis - which makes them semi-European at best. Whatever my western trained palate may say about qvervi wines, the Georgians love them, so much so that they have had ‘winemaking in qvervi’ inscribed on the UNESCO list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (see Tasting Georgian Wine)

The wines, Twins Winery, Napareuli, Saperavi, Georgian style white, European style white

Guesthouse in Telavi

From Gremi the capital of Kakhetti moved to Telavi which, with 20,000 inhabitants is still the region’s chief town. We arrived in the early evening and thought the town had a sad post-Soviet look, although we were to partly revise that opinion in the morning.

Telavi sits on the hills that are the southern boundary of the vineyard-filled Alazani Valley. Our guest house was at the top of the town so our room and the balcony on which we had dinner had superb views over the valley to the distant foothills of the Caucasus beyond.

Looking over Telavi and the Alazani Valley

Dinner was as vast as we had expected. Bread, tomato and cucumber salad, aubergine purée, pork stew, pancakes stuffed with a walnut paste, slabs of fried pork, flaky pastry stuffed with meat and finally our first khachapuri – the cheese pie that is ubiquitous through Georgia, though each region takes pride in its own variation on the basic theme of melted cheese.

The four of us, Lynne and I, Dinara the guide and Alex the driver, made a spirited effort but could eat less than half the food on the table. This, we discovered, is the Georgian way; they would hate a guest to go hungry - or thirsty, a litre jug of murky brown white wine was also plonked on the table. By the time we reached the bottom I was developing a taste for it.

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Location: Telavi, Georgia
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