News and Press

COVID-19 has presented so many challenges, but one silver lining is that for working remotely from home many, can mean working from anywhere. Destinations worldwide, which have seen tourism decline seriously during the pandemic, are taking advantage of this new way of remote working, offering long-stay visas that allow foreigners the opportunity to live and work in their country.

Common in red winemaking, the idea of extended skin contact is now on trend for whites, too.

The country of Georgia, which sits at the border between Asia and Europe, is joining the growing list of countries reopening to vaccinated travelers.

The subterranean air was thick and dank. A lightbulb hanging from the ceiling cast ominous shadows on the stone walls. I crowded into a circle of strangers and peered into a large, teardrop-shaped clay vessel, one of many buried in the groundwater around me.

Georgia is a Russian nesting doll of a country. In the past century alone, it has experienced more than its share of golden glory, fierce combat, intrigue, revolution and despair; and behind every story, there’s yet another life waiting to be discovered.

Winter’s back, right on time. While the season of low light and short days doesn’t manifest the same in every state – looking at you Florida and California – those in the north are largely trapped indoors.

Oenophiles in the US have been discovering Georgian wines as if the country had just begun making it, although Georgia is the historically accurate birthplace of wine. The United States and the rest of the world are simply discovering its renaissance.

Giorgi (Gogi) Dakishivili is one of Georgia’s pioneering modern-artisanal winemakers. He’s best known today for his own label, Orgo, made using traditional techniques, including fermenting in qvevri (large, buried clay vessels). These wines are some of the most highly sought after Georgian wines. He also makes the wines with his son Temur at the family winery (Dakishivili Vineyards) in Telavi.

Baia Abuladze started her winery in 2015, when she was just 22, working with the help of her mother, Tamriko Ghaladze, and her siblings Gvantsa and Giorgi. Today, they farm nearly four acres, the majority of it planted to tsolikouri, considered Imereti’s top variety.

As we say goodbye to what may have been the most challenging year of our lives, let’s count our blessings and celebrate our strengths by popping open one of these delicious sparkling wines made from organic grapes.

Exports of wines from Georgia (the country — the cradle of wine — not the U.S. state — the cradle of Coca Cola) have surged in recently years, a fact that is both well-deserved and timely. Georgia deserves the increased recognition of its wine sector both because it really is the cradle of wine, with literally thousands of years of history, and because the wine industry and government have invested heavily in recently years to raise standards and promote products in key markets.

Nestled between the two ranges of the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia is home to the oldest unbroken winemaking tradition in the world. Georgians are fiercely proud of their 8,000-year winemaking tradition, their hundreds of indigenous grape varieties, and their unique wine culture.