Wines of Georgia: Beyond Natural & Niche
August 26, 2021
Our virtual class on Georgian wines took place:
Thursday, August 26, 2021
Webinar via Zoom
Complete Presentation and Recordings are Now Available Below.
This Wines of Georgia class was designed to be a deep dive into the past and present of Georgia’s vibrant wine culture, with a special focus on medium- to large-production wineries best-suited to the US market.
The seminar was designed primarily for retail and on-premise buyers seeking to diversify their programming with products from this incredibly exciting corner of the wine universe.
9:00AM PST / 12:00PM EST / 8:00PM Tbilisi
LA-based wine educator Taylor Parsons led the class and was joined by one of Georgia’s leading winemakers, Gogi Dakishvili (Orgo label).
MORE ABOUT THE CLASS:
As Georgian wines have become more visible in the US over the past several years, the most substantial beachheads have emerged in two very different segments of the market. On the one hand, progressive shops and wine bars with a natural bent snap up tiny runs of glou-glou low-intervention qvevri wines for young urban audiences. On the other, local neighborhood groceries in Russian and Russia-adjacent immigrant communities stock their shelves with semi-sweet appellation reds, which in many ways represent a link to Georgia’s not-too-distant Soviet past.
The real action in Georgian wine is actually between these two poles: a substantial and growing field of medium- to large-production wineries with talented enologists at the helm, working hard to straddle the divide between Georgia’s rustic winemaking heritage and the rigor of the international marketplace. Today, some three decades after independence from Soviet rule, the humming core of Georgia’s wine industry is producing wines that compete favorably at several price points with the big players in the import markets…and do so while articulating a much more interesting story.
This online seminar sought to provide a detailed overview of this vibrant and rapidly expanding part of the Georgian wine industry, in addition to providing some important historical and present context.
Hosted by the Wines of Georgia / US office of the National Wine Agency (Marq Wine Group)
VIDEO RECORDING WEBINAR
AUDIO RECORDING WEBINAR
WEBINAR SLIDE DECK
Follow Us on IG: @winesgeorgia