Tbilisi, Georgia’s charming capital, has been flooded with tourists over the past decade. But Batumi, a hushed seaside city where verdant mountains slope down to the Black Sea’s smooth stone beaches, offers a different experience. Already a popular escape for Russians, Iranians, Turks and Israelis, the city is preparing itself for its inevitable discovery by…

“Wines from Georgia are probably inspiring the most excitement for a variety of reasons. First there’s the history, which has a mesmerizing frisson of danger: in the last century, the country’s 8000 year long wine culture was threatened due to the success of two high-yielding grapes, Rkatsiteli and Saperavi. Their success meant that many of the estimated 1500…

When René Redzepi, Carlo Petrini, and Yotam Ottolenghi rave in unison about a cookbook, it’s probably worth paying attention to. Enter Tasting Georgia by Carla Capalbo, an anthology of recipes, travel tips, and essays that bring the far-flung Caucasian nation into your kitchen and demystify its distinctive cuisine. Flip through Tasting Georgia’s 463 pages, and…

The Crazy Pomegranate, Georgia, is situated in the vineyard of a cult Georgian wine producer…

Rkatsiteli is grown in the eastern United States, but its homeland is Georgia, the nation in the Caucasus region that lays claim to being the birthplace of wine. This Dila-O is blended with mtsvane, another native Georgian grape, and is an “amber” wine, fermented on its skins in the traditional style that is enjoying a…

One of the most appealing aspects of wine is that it can transport one to another place, another time or another culture. Therefore, my travel wish list and my wine drinking wish list are much the same. I hope to be exploring and drinking wines from older wine-producing cultures such as Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Armenia,…

Concurrent with the fashion for amber wines, Simon Woolf’s highly readable book explores the history and production of the wines in their spiritual homes: Slovenia, Friuli and Georgia. Included is an extensive list of recommended producers across the globe, but Woolf’s primary investigation remains on the countries where skin-macerated wines are the tradition, not the…

Clay vessels have been used to ferment and age wine since ancient times. Neolithic Age wine vessels recently found in the Republic of Georgia were tested and confirmed to be the world’s oldest. “Almost every ancient culture, from the Canaanites to the Egyptians to the Assyrians to the Greeks and Romans, vinified in pottery vessels,”…

“Through the last few years of the amber wine trend, the tiny country of Georgia largely escaped notice outside of insider oenophile circles. Last year, that changed when scientists found evidence of winemaking on 8,000-year-old pottery shards unearthed in Georgia. Wine geeks and archaeologists alike buzzed with the discovery, and interest in Georgian wines spiked.…

“In Leningrad, back in 1990, the Georgian bars were the place to be. While the Berlin Wall was falling, the reality hadn’t really sunk in for most Russians; basic necessities like food and shoes were still hard to come by, and it wasn’t clear at the time if life would get any easier under the…