Travelling Around Britain and the World

Monday 18 August 2014

North on the Georgian Military Highway: Part 8 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

From Tbilisi to the Caucasus via the 'Canterbury of Georgia'

Georgia

Jvari Church, near Mtskheta

Driving north through Tbilisi we were soon free of the city. For a few kilometres we followed the dual carriageway heading west to Batumi and the Black Sea but soon turned off to follow a small road climbing the bare hillside to our right.

Jvari Church sitting on a bald hillside above Mtskheta

At the top is the little Jvari (Holy Cross) Church. It was upon this spot high above the confluence of Tbilisi's Mtkvari River and its tributary, the rather more pronounceable Aragvi, that King Mirion erected a wooden cross after his conversion by St Nino in the fourth century. Four hundred years later Stepanoz I, duke of Kartli (this region of Georgia is still known as Kartli) built a church on the spot. The church is an early example of the Georgian ‘tetraconch’ design, being cross shaped with four equal arms, the angles between them filled in with corner rooms.

Perhaps not King Mirion's original cross, Jvari Church near Mtskheta

The interior is relatively bare, but King Mirion's cross, or at least a descendant of it, is still there, and there are some icons. The painting of St Nicholas is hardly Santa Claus with the wrong white beard and no red robe.

St Nicholas, Jvari Church near Mtskheti

It is an interesting place to put a church, highly visible yet easily defensible. Georgia has spent most of its existence at the meeting point of empires, but the Ottomans did not yet exist and Russian power was centuries away, so presumably Stepanoz was concerned about more localised strife.

Mtskheta

From Jvari there is a magnificent view over the small city of Mtskheta sitting in the confluence of the two rivers. The first three of that daunting clump of consonants are supposed to be sounded separately followed by the 'kh' which resembles the 'ch' in 'loch'. In practice, when said quickly, my ignorant ear heard just 'Sketa'.

Mtskheta at the confluence of the Aragvi and Mtkvari Rivers

Mtskheta is dominated by the enormous (by eleventh century standards) bulk of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, and that was where we went next though by a circuitous route; first we had to find our way to the other side of the duel carriageway and then navigate country roads to cross the Mtkvari - twice.

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

As the see of the Catholicos-Patriarch, Mtskheta is the Canterbury of Georgia. The streets of the small town were quiet as we walked up to the fortified wall that surrounds the church. The present Svetitskhoveli Cathedral was built in the 11th century but there has been a church on the site since the 4th century.

Quiet streets and the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Mtskheta

Sidonia and Christ's Seemless Robe

Inside the most important object is the grave of Sidonia containing (in addition to Sid) Christ's seamless robe for which the soldiers played dice at the foot of the cross. According to Hollywood, after Richard Burton had supervised the crucifixion he won the Robe and it led him, via various tribulations and plot twists, to true love, Christianity and martyrdom. Georgian legend differs. The Robe was won by a soldier who, not being Richard Burton, immediately sold it on to a Georgian Jewish merchant named Elias. Elias brought the Robe home to Mtskheta and gave to his sister Sidonia who promptly died in a fit of pious ecstasy. Fortunately not all holiday gifts have this effect.

The Robe is down there somewhere (alegedly),Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Mtskheta

Unable to prise the Robe from her cold, dead hand, they buried it with her and a cedar tree grew over the grave. When St Nino persuaded King Mirion to build the original cathedral the cedar was hewn into seven pillars. Six were used in construction while the seventh refused to co-operate and instead hung in the air the way planks don’t (as Douglas Adams almost observed). After St Nino spent a night in prayer the spar deigned to locate itself over the grave where it gave off a sacred liquid that cured all diseases, hence the name Svetitskhoveli (Life-giving Pillar) Cathedral. It is still there to this day, inside a sort of kiosk.

I find this story less believable than the Hollywood version - and that was based on a novel. Regardless of what I think, people arrive at the kiosk to pray in a steady stream.

Praying beside the tomb of the Robe, Svetitskhoveli Cathedral

The man crossing himself in the photo below is wearing a skirt. A strict dress code is applied in Georgian churches. Women must cover their heads and wear long skirts and men must wear long trousers. Head scarves and wrap around skirts are always available in the porch, and unless the authorities are very fussy it is acceptable for men in shorts to wrap a skirt around themselves. It is unusual for a conservative institution to find cross-dressing more acceptable than knees, but who am I to comment?

Cross-dressing in Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Mtskheta

The sound of singing was coming from a small side chapel, an unaccompanied choir of such musicality, complexity and power it made the hairs stand up on the backs of our necks. Poking our heads into the chapel we found to our amazement that all this sound was being produced by one priest and two middle aged women. We stood and listened open mouthed until their rehearsal came to an end.

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, Mtskheta

Beyond the church the town was busier; there were stalls and cafes and a couple of busloads of Israeli tourists for them to work with. We stopped and drank some coffee before continuing northwards.

Following the Georgian Military Highway into the Caucasus

We drove along what is slightly ominously known as the Georgian Military Highway which follows the route used since antiquity by merchants and invaders travelling or rampaging between Vladikavkaz in Dagestan and Tbilisi. In 1799 Georgia sought help from Russia to free itself from a hundred years of Persian domination. Two years later Georgians duly found themselves free from Persia - but annexed by Russia. Tsar Alexander I instructed General Yermolov to construct a road across the Caucasus. A major feat of engineering, the road was not finished until 1863, but by then the Georgian Military Highway was, by some distance, the best road in Russia.

Nearby, to our west, was South Ossetia which, along with Abkhazia, had with Russian encouragement, declared itself independent of Georgia in 1991, a situation confirmed by the Russia-Georgia War of 2008. Now de facto independent states, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are recognised only by Russia, a couple of Russian cronies, each other and their fellow post-Soviet breakaways, Nagorno Karabakh and Transnistria. (There will be more about this conflict when we reach Gori and Kutaisi in two days’ time.)

The road began to rise into the mountains, following the Aragvi River to the Zhinvali hydroelectric dam, then clinging to the lakeside above the dam.

Zemo Avchala hydroelectric dam

We stopped for lunch in the foothills at a large roadside restaurant obviously popular with tourists – today, as in Mtskheta, dominated by several large groups of Israelis.

Dinara and Lynne have lunch beside the Georgian Military Highway
Khachapuri, tomato salad with walnut & garlic dressing, lobio in its clay pot and khinkali

We found a table on a quiet balcony and, on Dinara's advice, ordered lobio, khinkali and a couple of glasses of very brown Georgian white wine. Lobio is a stew of beans in a clay pot, not unlike ful, which we have eaten in Sudan and Egypt where it is the national breakfast food, but made from haricot rather than broad beans. Khinkali are meat filled dumplings, bigger than Chinese jiaozi and more like Mongolian buuz, but filled with beef rather than pork or mutton. They also contain a quantity of cooking liquid so they must be eaten with care. The approved method is to nip a hole in the side and suck out the liquid, a technique which Lynne is demonstrating in the photo below. Note her elegant and ladylike daintiness.

How to eat khinkali

Ananuri Fortress

Ananuri Fortress now sits beside the lake, but when it was built by the Dukes of Aragvi, who ruled here from the 13th to the 18th century, it would have been an imposing sight, perched high on the side of a deep valley. It is now picturesque rather than forbidding, so much so that it appears on the cover of the Lonely Planet ‘Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan’ guidebook. My picture is taken from the same spot, though in summer - theirs was in spring.

Ananuri Fortress

Inside the wall there are not one but two churches – well, this is Georgia - both dating from the 17th century. Between 1811 and 1917 the Georgian Orthodox Church was absorbed into the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian churches typically have an iconostasis separating the nave from the sanctuary and whitewashed walls. The Georgian tradition had been to cover the walls with frescoes which the Russians whitewashed over. The larger church retains its iconostasis…..

Iconostasis, Ananuri Fortress

….but much of the whitewash has been removed to reveal the old frescoes including an impressive 'last judgement.' Dinara’s parents, artists both, have been heavily involved in the work of uncovering and conserving Georgia’s frescoes.

Last Judgement, Ananuri Fortress

Outside there are some wonderful stone-carvings….

Ananuri Fortress

…and climbing the tower of the surrounding battlements gives a good view over both churches.

Churches, Ananuri Fortress

On to Gudauri

We wound higher and higher into the mountains. The Georgian Military Highway may not look as impressive to us as to the 19th century eye, but it is still a skilfully engineered and well-maintained road.

Gudauri, our destination for the evening, is a ski resort. It consists of a couple of houses, a petrol station with a large, modern self-service shop attached and a number of hotels scattered around the bare green hillside where the road starts the serious climb up the 2379m (7,800 feet) Jvari Pass.

There is little going on in summer apart from the ceaseless grind of lorries heading up the pass towards Russia, and those making the easier trip downwards.

Gudauri

Lynne, Dinara, Alex and I appeared to be our small hotel’s only guests, but when we assembled for dinner we found a huge buffet laid out. I requested a bottle of red wine, but paused when I was asked for 21 lari, about £7, not a big sum at home, but it seemed excessive in Georgia. What I had forgotten was that very little, and then only the best, Georgian wine gets into bottles. The waitress asked if I wanted 'home made wine', though whose home it was made in she did not specify – and as Gudauri is almost 2000m up a mountain, it was certainly not a local home. The wine, poured into a jug from a plastic bottle, cost 15 Lari for the litre, and was as brown and tannic as any 'white' wine ever made in a qvervi. It may not be subtle, it may not be refined, but it accompanies Georgian food like it was made for the job (which, actually, it was).

Half way through the meal a busload of Russians arrived. It spoilt our peaceful dinner, but at least it justified the size of the buffet.

From the Caspian to the Black Sea

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Location: Gudauri, Georgia

Sunday 17 August 2014

Tbilisi: Part 7 of From the Caspian to the Black Sea

Mother Georgia

Georgia
Tbilisi

Looking from our bedroom window in the morning it was difficult to believe we were in a city. Behind us largely open ground rose to the heights of Narikala Fortress and alongside it the giant figure of Mother Georgia, described by the Lonely Planet as being 'as attractive as a 20m aluminium woman can be.'

Mother Georgia looks over Tbilisi

Dinara arrived to conduct our walking tour of Tbilisi. Starting from our hotel, we passed the old synagogue (closed to visitors) and crossed Meidan Square. Whilst western Georgia battled against Ottoman control and the east fought Persian domination (long before both were annexed by Russia) Tbilisi was the capital of an Arab caliphate. Meidan comes from the Arabic 'midan' meaning square, so we were crossing Square Square - and you have to take care crossing tautologies.

Tbilisi Synagogue

The old town is on the southern side of Tbilisi's Mtkvari River. English speakers think Tbilisi starts with an unhelpful clump of consonants, so Mtkvari is a word that can only be looked at in jaw-clamped amazement. The Georgian language - a member of the Kartvelian language group, whose only other members are also spoken only in Georgia - loves to aggregate apparently unpronounceable consonants, seven or even eight are possible and four, as in Mtkvari is common.

Metekhi Church and Founding of the City

Central Tbilisi is situated in a ravine. On the south side the cliffs are several hundred metres back, but on the north they rise straight from the river for a considerable stretch. We crossed the bridge from tautology square and climbed the bluff to Metekhi Church, one of the more prominent of Tbilisi’s ample supply of churches. Many Georgians, mainly older woman, feel the need to cross themselves, not once but repeatedly, every time they see a church. In Tbilisi old ladies can develop right arms like tennis players.

Metekhi Church, Tbilisi

The 5th century King Vakhtang Gorgasali built his palace and a church on this outcrop. Legend says the king was out hunting when his falcon grabbed a pheasant and he watched the two birds tumble from the sky. According to one story he found them both dead in a hot spring, but the statue commemorating the event - which is across the river beside the still extant hot spring - shows a live falcon standing atop a boiled pheasant. Apparently this 'ready meal' aspect persuaded the king to build his capital here.

Hawk and boiled pheasant, Tbilisi

David the Builder, Georgia’s greatest king who united the country in the eleventh century built his own palace and church over Vakhtang's. The current church was started by King Demetre Tavdadebuli (Demetre the Self-Sacrificing) in the thirteenth century. Allegedly it was a copy of David the Builder’s church, but it has been partially destroyed and rebuilt many times, so if it ever was, it is not now.

Mass was being celebrated and we joined the congregation listening to a venerable priest with a rich voice reading from the New Testament. His sonorous tones were answered by a choir of unbelievable musicality. What happens, I wonder, to a young man who feels a vocation to the orthodox priesthood but lacks a resonant bass voice? As always in orthodox churches there were no pews, the standing congregation came and went, and we left as communion started.

Outside we photographed the 1960s equestrian statue of Vakhtang Gorgasali ….

King Vakhtang Gorgasali, outside Mekheti Church, Tbilisi

Tamada

…. and re-crossed the bridge to the old town, pausing near the Konka Station where we had eaten last night. Nearby is a bronze statue of a man (or boy?) relaxing in a chair, drinking-horn in hand. Every Georgian supra (feast) needs a tamada, a toastmaster who proposes the toasts for others to elaborate upon and so keep the wine flowing. This little fellow, known as Tamada, is Tbilsi’s permanent honorary toastmaster. He is a copy of a gold trinket, the original hardly 2cm tall, which wewould seelater in the national museum. We noticed last night that visitors flock to be photographed with Tamada, those small enough sitting on its lap, others posing beside him. There was no reason why we should be left out.

With Tamada, Tbilisi

A Café, a Caravanserai and the Bridge of Peace

We passed Sioni Cathedral again and continued down a narrow street lined with cafés….

Café, Tbilisi

…. and a couple of caravansaries. Tbilisi was a major hub onthe Silk Road between Baku and Istanbul and the caravansaries were more urban and western than the one we stayed in in Sheki. Sadly, modern Tbilisi does not quite seem to know what to do with them.

Caravansary, Tbilisi

Beyond is the ultra-modern Bridge of Peace footbridge, opened in 2010. The cable car running from the north side of the river to the cliffs on the city’s southern edge does not run on Sunday mornings so there was no point crossing the bridge, but we did anyway.

Bridge of Peace, Tbilisi

Across the bridge, in front of the Presidential Palace, is the recently completed Rike Park Theatre and Exhibition Centre. This strange tube-like structure is one of the controversial ‘New Georgia’ buildings designed to contrast with the old city. Striking and innovative it will, in time, become loved or hated (or possibly both).

Rike Park Theatre, Tbilisi

Georgian Orthodoxy on a Sunday Morning

Continuing along the south bank we passed the palace of the Catholicos-Patriarch of all Georgia. Melkizidek I became the first Catholicos-Patriarch in 1001 and the line continued unbroken until 1811 when Russian annexation led to the absorption of the Georgian Orthodox Church into the Russian Orthodox Church. Independence was regained in 1917 and, as the Soviet Union was as equally hostile to both churches it has been maintained ever since. The present incumbent, Elias II, has been in post since 1977.

the Catholicos-Patriarch of all Georgia lives in here, Tbilisi

Nearby is the 6th century Anchiskhati Basilica, Tbilisi’s oldest surviving church. It was packed and as even the faithful were queuing for entrance gawpers were not welcome.

Anchiskhati Basilica, Tbilisi

Puppet Theatre, Tbilisi

The narrow streets of the old town continue as far as the Puppet Theatre with its crazily leaning clock tower. The puppet shows, Dinara informed us, were for adults, not children and as the next production was entitled 'The Siege of Stalingrad' we had to believe her. Rezo Gabriadze, who founded the theatre and designed the building, writes and produces all the shows. The shows have also toured extensively including visits to the Edinburgh Festival and London’s Barbican.

Puppet Theatre, Tbilisi

Leaving the narrow roads of the old city we turned left toward the commercial centre.

'Stalin's Seminary' and a Cheese Shop

Opposite the seminary…..

The seminary where Stalin trained to be a priest, Tbilisi

…. where Josef Dzejugashvili, who later renamed himself Josef Stalin, studied for the priesthood (he was thrown out for ‘revolutionary activities’), is a specialist cheese shop. I did not set out to write a sentence linking one of the twentieth centuries worst political monsters with the trivia of my own foodie obsession, but it happened and I am not going to change it. So there.

Cheese shop, Tbilisi

Cheese is important to Georgians (though I don't know Stalin's relationship with cheese, even if it is recorded) and appears at every meal either as the ubiquitous khachapuri cheese pie, or as plain wedges, but most often both. Georgian cheese is hard, crumbly and with a strong, distinctive flavour. It could be mistaken for no other cheese, but we had not encountered much variety. The cheerful cheesemonger was happy to give us a tasting, though he knew we were in no position to buy. Carving slices with pride he proved that variety does exist. He had cheeses of different shapes and sizes, some from cow's milk, some from goat's and a few sheep milk cheeses. They all had a distinctive Georgian character but varied in strength, friability, and goatiness or sheepiness as appropriate.

Freedom Square, Tbilisi

Continuing to Freedom Square we paused for a Turkish coffee. The café stood on the edge of the square where St George slays his Dragon on top of a 35m column. The sculpture in gilded bronze is the work of Zurab Tsereteli who donated it to the city. It was unveiled in 2006, filling a vacancy that had existed since Lenin, after whom the square was once named, vanished in 1991.

George and his Dragon, Freedom Square, Tbilisi

Georgian National Museum, The Treasure

After coffee we walked round the square and made our way to the National Museum. The museum equipped us with an English speaking guide, an elderly woman who asked if we would like to start with ‘treasure’ or ‘general archaeological’. Thinking it would not matter much I said 'treasure' and she took us down to a large, dimly lit basement.

Ten minutes later we were still at the first display case; clearly 'treasure' was all we were going to see. She was an enthusiast and talking in the way such people do, her enthusiasm was infectious. Objects of gold, silver and semi-precious stones, including the tiny original of the Tamada, have been recovered from burials from the third millennium BC up to the fourth century AD. Her particular enthusiasm was for the older pieces where the workmanship was, she said, the finest. Sometimes I could see her point, sometimes a more expert eye than mine was required. The gold came from the ancient Kingdom of Colchis where Jason and the Argonauts came to steal the Golden Fleece - before this trip I had not even realised Colchis was a real place.

Gold Earrings from Colchis, 5th century BC, Georgian National Museum, picture from Wikipedia

Dinara remarked that one particular group of artefacts had been discovered by her grandfather. The guide asked who he was. She knew him, of course (he is an eminent archaeologist) and she had also taught Dinara's father. Tbilisi is a small town.

After over an hour with the treasure lunch beckoned – it was well after one o'clock.

We decided to eat and then return, but to the Soviet Occupation exhibition rather than the archaeology – life is too short to see everything.

Lunch In Tbilisi, Megrelian Khachapuri

We lunched in a cavernous basement restaurant which we almost had to ourselves. 'It's always busy in the evenings,' Dinara said, slightly defensively. We ate Megrelian Khachapuri (every region had its own version but the differences are mostly too slight to concern foreigners) and mushrooms in a clay pot - seven or eight mushrooms each with a small piece of cheese melted in the cap. The dish is relatively expensive but brings out all the flavour of the mushrooms.

Georgian National Museum, The Soviet Occupation

Back in the museum, the Soviet Occupation section had similarities with those we had seen in the Baltic States (see Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn). Like the Baltics, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia were absorbed into Imperial Russia by the expansionist policies of Peter the Great. All six states saw a brief flowering of freedom after the First World War but while the Baltic States remained independent until the Second World War freedom lasted only until 1920 or ‘21 in the Caucasus.

Independence was reclaimed in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but not without a struggle. We saw the Declaration of Independence, and Dinara proudly pointed out her great-grandmother's signature in the second column.

The Baltic States are now members of the European Union and NATO. Georgia fears Russia even more than they do, having lost control of the provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia after Russian supported breakaways, and losing a further war against Russia over South Ossetia in 2008. In Georgia we frequently saw the EU flag flown alongside the Georgian flag, and many would like the protection of the EU and NATO – a situation to which the Russians are implacably opposed.

Emerging into the heat of the afternoon we headed back to the Peace Bridge, pausing only to photograph Lynne alongside Pushkin who spent some time in Tbilisi in the 1820s.

Lynne and Pushkin, Tbilisi

The Narikala Fortress

The cable car was now running and it swung us swiftly up across the old city to Narikala Fortress. Looking back we could see the huge Tsminda Sameba cathedral which is nearing completion….

Looking across the city to the new Tsminda Sameba Cathedral, Tbilisi

…while to the northwest the city spreads away into the distance.

Tbilisi sprawls into the distance

Narikala Fortress sits on a thin ridge....

Narikala Fortress, Tbilisi

....the land behind dropping away as quickly as on the city side. Behind we looked down onto the botanical gardens and an area of eroded badlands that seemed incongruous so near the centre of a city. Below us was the river and the Metekhi Church.

Metekhi Church and the Mtkvari River, Tbilisi

There is road access to the end of the fortress and we were surprised to find Alex waiting for us in the car park. Also there was a young man who had apparently packed the whole of a coffee shop into the back of a van. Perhaps he looked so glum because apart from my photographing him, his feat was attracting neither interest nor custom.

Coffee van, Narikala Fortress, Tbilisi

Tbilisi Thermal Baths

Alex drove us down the end of the ridge to the thermal baths where Vakhtang Gorgasali's pheasant was boiled. Most of the low domed buildings have been converted to other uses, but some survive as baths and the smell of sulphur lurks around the streets, though you have to be in exactly the right place to catch it.

The old baths, Tbilisi

At the end of the baths and rather separated from the others is a building I took to be mosque. Persian in style it is, in fact, another bath, and once described by Pushkin as the most luxurious place on earth.

Persian style baths, Tbilisi

There is real a mosque tucked behind the ridge, just one for the whole Muslim population of the city. There used to be two, one Sunni, one Shiite, but Stalin said they only needed one and should share. They still do, which could be a lesson to some of their co-religionists.

Tbilisi mosque (from the Naraqila Fortress)

We walked up the stream past the baths where the sulphur smell comes and goes to the waterfall at the end of the little ravine. It may not be the most majestic of waterfalls but it is the largest I know of in the centre if a capital city.

Waterfall by hot springs, Tbilisi

We returned to our hotel for a shower after a long hot day. Later we returned to the row of cafés in the old city and picked the wrong one. There was nothing wrong with the dolmas and soured cream, the mushrooms, or the pancakes with walnuts and honey, but they were overpriced and the service was frustratingly slow.

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Location: Tbilisi, Georgia

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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