To quote someone in the business "What the industry desperately needs is a new grape". Oddly this was said in relation to Gruner Veltliner being grown in New Zealand, which is all very well and good, but if you will, allow me to take us all a little further abroad. Georgia, a tucked away corner that has been producing wine for about 8,000 odd years. How could a region this old have something new to offer you may ask? Simple it has over 500 indigenous grapes.
There are a couple of reasons why the wines of this region haven't really been discovered yet. Up until 1990, we had a little thing in Eastern Europe called the U.S.S.R. and that had sort of stifled things in terms of us in the West experiencing these sort of things.
One other problem, that seems to have stuck in the psyche of wine buyers is the belief that Georgian wine does one thing and one thing only. Semi-sweet wines that lack any sort of seriousness for a European palate. Guess what? That's rather wrong at the moment. It just so happens that Georgia is starting to producing some serious and dry wines to suit the very picky European palate.
What's kick started this? The big Russian ban which came about over a scandal involving "counterfeit Georgian wines" which just happen to coincide with some political tensions between the Georgians and Russians, this all of course coincidental. Admittedly, even the Georgians have admitted there have been some problems in relation to this. However rather ironically for the Russian, this ban on Georgian wine has seen a massive quality jump, which they are currently missing out on. So in this world were we are continuously thrown about by politicians lets raise a glass to the wine to these Georgian wineries and say "bugger you" to Mr Putin.
Here's our take on two entry level Georgian wines, from Tbilvino a name that has started to emerge on the Irish wine Market. One is a the white made from the grape Rkatsiteli, usually this is a grape kept for blending with others due to the very high levels of acidity, and a red Saperavi that has even picked up a medal along the way.
Up First: The White, Rkatsiteli 2010
Appearance
Light intensity, with a pale gold to lemon hue.
Nose
The nose has no shyness about it extremely pronounced starting with a fruit explosion shattering the senses with a combination of watermelon, kiwi, and sued granny apple. The nose offers more than than something pleasant.
Palate
The palate keeps in line with the nose, great fruit notes and technically brilliant. We'd done some reading initially to get our bearing with the wines and had heard a lot about the vicious acidity this grape can embody, but at first we couldn't place it as viscous, rather on the palate it was well integrated and refreshing. Yet, even on full post meal stomachs we both noted that their was a strong acid burn.
Comments
The wine itself was great, but the levels of acidity were a little much, we divided a little on it. Agreeing that the best use of this particular wine was as a single glass aperitif would leave it fantastic thanks to its interesting nose and palate, however moving beyond the first glass we would question the wine.
Score: 70
Price: €8
Value: 3
Up Next: The Red, Saperavi, 2008
Appearance
A deep and brooding dark purple beast.
Nose
Clean, and yet there is something very very dark about this wine. The wine holds something of a Bardolino about it, cherry fruit, and plum with some blackberry too boot. More interestingly, it offers some more earthy tones, with some truffle and rustic notes. As the wine opens up it begins to show of it's intense oak influence. Needless to say, that again from the nose, things are indicates something rather serious about this wine.
Palate
Well any fears this may follow the white are squashed and thrown away as we taste the wine, amazingly Bardolino like on the palate, light to medium with cherry fruit dominating however, this is Bardolino in a whole different like, dark cherry, plum and blackberry dominate as medium acidity and tannin offer support as notes of chocolate and coffee begin to elope onto the palate. The wine develops and evolves as the night continues. Altogether a fantastic wine.
Comments
I think we can conclude one thing about this wine, as an entry level this is an extremely serious wine. Curious, we began to ponder the price of this. Finding it to sit at maybe €10.95 we freaked. The wine is a steal. It as serious quality for a knock off price. This is a must try. The acidity is good enough to compliment food while not demanding it. Our preferred, obviously. So if the world wants Gruner as its new white, we'd advise this be the red.
Price: €10.95
Score: 90
Value: 5
The message behind this is simple, maybe take a leap of faith and pull one of these wines out of the local. They are terrific value, we'll be working to try and get our hands on some of the higher tier wines, we'd advise you all to get out there and do the same. Georgia seems like it may be an undiscovered rally point for all of us looking for something a little different.
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