Gadling

We’ve posted a couple of times before about the wondrous wines which hail from the former Soviet republic of Georgia. And now, the New York Times has discovered them as well.

C. J. Chivers, writing in last Sunday’s paper, takes us to the fertile valleys of Georgia for a bit of the old world wine tasting.

Georgians claim that the drink itself was actually first invented in their country thousands of years ago. There is certainly some speculation over this claim, but be it true or not, the reality is that Georgian wine tastes as though they’ve been perfecting the product longer than anyone else.

Sure, some of it is hit or miss, but that’s the case with any country’s vino.

Chivers spends much of his time in Kakheti, a region I visited two summers ago which is crammed with vineyards and wineries. In fact, every house in the area is a winery. Grape vines grow over practically every bit of real estate and the locals are constantly producing their own vintage. If you visit, however, don’t be alarmed by the copious amounts of wine stored in plastic, one-liter Pepsi bottles. Georgians recycle the containers and regularly use them to bottle their home made wines.

Day three of Georgian Wine posts.

One can’t speak about Georgian wines without a brief word about the Tamada. If you are ever fortunate enough to travel to (former Soviet) Georgia, and are lucky enough to be invited into someone’s home for dinner and drinks (a surprisingly common affair) than you need to know a few things about the Tamada.

The Tamada, is basically the toastmaster. You see, Georgians take their drinking very seriously and their toasts even more so. Over the course of thousands of years of drinking, the Georgian toast has evolved into a very formal affair with strict rules and etiquette. To be ignorant of such etiquette is to insult your host.

For example, only the tamada is allowed to make toasts and no one else can do so until he gives permission. You can expect most tamadas to make seven or eight toasts to such as time-honored themes as women, family, love, peace, friends, departed relatives, parents and women. In some parts of Georgia, this list is extended to include the country’s most famous son, Joseph Stalin. If things are going really well, the tamada may even bring out a hollowed goat horn to drink out of for the most honored guest-you!

There are countless other rules and formalities to be aware of-all of which become blurry and easily forgotten towards the end of the evening. Indeed, there is enough going on here that an entire dissertation can be written about the rich culture of the Georgian toasts. Fortunately for you, someone has done so. I’m glad I had read the whole thing before drinking with the two old coots featured in the photo above. Otherwise I may have spat out my wine when the second toast of the night was to Stalin.

For those of you who read yesterday’s post about Russian wine pirates counterfeiting Georgian vino, a simple thought may have crossed your mind: why bother? Just how good could Georgian wine possibly be for an entire black market to evolve?

Well, consider this: not only is southern Georgia blessed with very fertile, winegrowing conditions, but Georgians have been taking advantage of this climate since approximately 5000 BC. Some archeologists claim that wine was actually invented in what is now present-day Georgia.

The problem, however, is that during the time Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, wine production suffered the same fate as every other industry communism managed to ruin. Even worse, when communism fell and the Georgian economy went belly-up, its wine industry nearly followed.

There are, however, a collection of fine wines still produced. The very best I tasted last summer, however, was served out of plastic Pepsi bottles. Nearly every bed-and-breakfast and most family homes in southern Georgia make their own wine, and it was all excellent (Pepsi bottle notwithstanding). Although the area is currently struggling, and investors are wary of the region’s instability, winemaking remains in the blood of the Georgian people. And boy, do they do good job of it.