Category Archives: Georgia

Teliani Valley Khvanchkara 2006

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If this wine were used as a prop, I wouldn’t believe it was real. Alternatively, just looking at the glass makes me wonder if my internal color correction software is off; there’s an odd, unreal purple-mauve thing going here that’s just a little bit unusual.Grapey-yeasty-sweet on the nose, it’s clear this isn’t profoundly complex, but it’s appealing enough in its own way. With some aeration, the nose shifts into a less cherry-candy spectrum, suggesting instead a bit of sourness, stalkiness, and other almost Pinot-like flavors.Although advertised as a semi-sweet wine, the sweetness isn’t appreciably more than many wines made for the American palate: yes, there’s just a bit more residual sugar than you’d find in something like [yellow tail] shiraz, but it’s far from a full-on sweet wine. What’s more immediately apparent is that there are wonderfully present tannins here, firm and ripe, supporting a wonderfully textured, unctuously rich wine that has traded alcohol for sugars in order to get that texture. In short, if you like high octane New World red wines with that tell-tale high alcohol rich, filling mouthfeel, then this might be a fairly good substitute if you like the taste and feel but don’t like the hangover the next day.Returning to the wine again, there’s almost a suggestion of green olives on the nose; another glass and I’m almost reminded of eating liver pâté with cornichons and sweet pickled onions. I don’t mean to suggest that this wine smells like liverwurst – it doesn’t at all – but rather that there’s the same interesting juxtaposition between a sweetness and something, well, a bit more trying than that. The supporting acidity keeps the wine fresh, not cloying; the tannin makes it all seem rather more serious than it has any right to be.Ultimately, it’s a very good wine indeed. I’d be interested to see how it works with cheesecake and foie gras, but alas my cupboards are bare at the moment. If you have some, chill it down slightly and try it out as a kind of gateway drug with friends who don’t drink wine: it’s approachable enough to please just about anyone, and yet there’s enough going on the background to open the conversation about the pleasurable complexities of good wine.Teliani Valley
Price: $22
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Vinoterra Mtsvane 2005

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I have never, ever seen a wine of this particular color before. This is an ungodly shade of sherry-peach-cream that I had no idea was possible outside of a 1970s makeup counter. Honestly, I’m surprised. Just when you think you’ve seen and drunk it all comes something completely outside and unthinkable to surprise you.I would have expected some oxidation on the nose given the color; instead, I get something like toffee and walnuts… for a moment until that tell-tale Sherry-like smells kicks in too. There are also wildly varying notes of cold cream, fine leather gloves, and cucumber. Overall, it has the effect of suggesting an English garden complete with ladies enjoying a cream tea: all kinds of curious, elegant smells suggesting flowers, finger sandwiches, kid leather, and freshly washed faces. Bizarre, I know, but honest: I’m not ridiculously far off the mark here.Relatively light at first, the flavor quickly solidifies in the mouth, showing slight oxidative notes as well as what feels like moderate tannin. However, things change up in the middle of palate, suddenly broadening out into tea roses, Brazil nuts, macadamia, and burnt cream. Although not a big wine (there is neither residual sugar nor noticeable alcohol), it nevertheless feels serious, solid, and frankly a bit like homework: the noticeable tannin prevents a sense of freshness and all of the fine aromatics on the nose are lost in the kerthunk of the wine driving its point home. However, there is also a fairly unbelievable suggestion of violet-encrusted strawberries, somehow, hiding in there among the oxidative notes and tannins. In short, I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on here. If there was ever a wine so complex as to be bewildering, then it’s probably this one: my only real complaint is that there are so many things going on here and yet so few of them seem to belong in the same bottle.If this wine were a perfume, it would be Odeur 53 by Comme des Garçons: truly, this is remarkable, but drinking it is feeling awfully postmodern somehow. Serve with lavender crème brûlée, Marcona almonds, macaroons, and a bowl of Corn Pops. Why not?   Vinoterra
Price: $20
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Vinoterra Saperavi 2003

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This is a beautiful wine to look at, all rich damson murkiness disappearing into the glass. The nose is wildly complex, offering up suggestions of Marmite, drippings, cola, and dried herbs. To be absolutely honest, I can’t tell at first whether or not it smells good; it seems to exist in a strange herbal-yeasty funk zone that isn’t clear about whether or not it’s supposed to smell like that. On the other hand, I appear to be salivating, so I suppose it’s not all bad.Drinking some of this comes as a shock: I wasn’t expecting something as austere as this. With that wildly massive nose, I was expecting a New World fruit bomb, and what I got instead was an elegant, restrained display of finesse. The tannins are the first thing I notice, somewhat drying, very firm; then, the chalky acidity mixes in with very herbal, dried fruits reminiscent of dried cherries and air-dried meat (think Bündnerfleisch, perhaps). It’s absolutely gorgeous, more like a ripe Burgundy than anything else I can think of, especially given the elegant, mineral, chalky mouthfeel juxtaposed against solid tannins – and yet there’s no greenness here, just lovely fruit set to great effect against that solid tannic-acidic background.Vinoterra
Price: $24
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Two Georgians Tsinandali 2004

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This wine smells like overripe pears and heavy white flowers. There’s a somewhat overwrought perfume here reminiscent of cheap floral perfumes dusty from neglect, stashed behind the counter of a small town drugstore. There’s almost a slight citral note here, too, but ultimately what is there isn’t there for long; this wine doesn’t smell fresh or old, just reticent.Somewhat medium bodied in the mouth, the entry of the wine is unremarkable, but blossoms strangely into something resembling a weak tisane of elderflowers and mint. It’s all tinged by what I’ll describe as the taste of cheapness: it’s got that strange, overcropped feel you get in developing countries that have yet to rejoin the world of modern winemaking techniques. It reminds me of cheap Slovene wines or indifferent mass-produced French ones.There’s good, well-judged supporting acidity on the finish, and the flavor – such as it is – does linger for a while. Ultimately, this seems to be a case of wasted potential; everything here could be good given reduced vineyard yields, but someone went for quantity, not quality, and what we’re left with is a bottle of wine that’s good enough to make me sad for what could have been, but nothing more than that.

Two Georgians Mukuzani 2004

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My first instinct was to write a short review that went kind of like this:There are some amazing wines produced in Georgia. This is not one of them.My second instinct was to make an abstruse, lame joke about Two Lari Chuck (or whatever Chuck is in Georgian), but you know? That’s lame. Also, abstruse.So. Here’s the real tasting note:The packaging is cheesy and Russian: a cheap glass bottle inexplicably ribbed for your drinking pleasure. I suspect it’s supposed to look like a woven basket, but what does that have to do with kvevri?The nose is simple and grapey; with ten minutes’ aeration, it does eventually gain a bit in complexity, but not much. Fans of Zinfandel might like this or even confuse it with Zin, especially if already drunk. (Hint: This could be a bottle to serve once you’ve served the good  stuff at the beginning of the party.) Thin and gnashingly acidic, it does manage to right itself somewhat on the afterpalate, but the only flavors here are generic grape wine product with an edge of raspberry sorbet. It’s not nasty, but it’s also not enough to make me want to finish the bottle.My third and final idea for a brief review:How do you say sangria in Georgian?Oddly enough, this wine improved greatly after half an hour in the glass. Ultimately, I don’t think it’s a bad wine, just a fairly traditional one that doesn’t show well immediately after uncorking it, which is probably a bad thing for a wine in this price bracket. Even so, I’m not in a hurry to drink any more of it.Two Georgians
Price: $7.49
Closure: Cork

Vinoterra Saperavi 2003

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I’m up in the (San Francisco) Bay Area for the weekend – tomorrow is day 2 of Bonny Doon’s annual winery festival, which sounds like it’s going to be fun – and I stopped by K&L Wines on the way to an East German restaurant. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but when I saw that they had Georgia wine that didn’t cost five bucks, I had to buy a bottle immediately and take it back to the hotel after (an alcohol free) dinner.

The nose here is strongly reminiscent of a number of rich, fruity New World reds such as Michel Rolland’s Clos de los Siete, Mollydooker in South Australia, or Boekenhoutskloof in South Africa. There is, however, something slightly different here, with a note of coffee that doesn’t really seem like it should be from oak – it’s hard to describe.

More tannic than I was suspecting, the wine has rich, dark fruit nicely counterbalanced by some very well judged (French?) oak – it really is a generic international style wine far different than the Georgian stuff I’ve had from local Russian ex-pat delis in California. I’m not convinced that there’s anything here that you can’t find in a number of other wines in roughly the same price range, but it is tasty, the bottle is attractive, and there is a subtle taste here that is unfamiliar. It might make a good change for the overly jaded wine drinkers among us.

Vinoterra
Price: $22
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: November 2008