Nika Qvevri Wine

Tuesday was a very busy day with visits to three Georgian wineries. Two of the wineries are small production wineries that are producing wines using the Georgian traditional qvevri. The other winery produces large quantities of wine using stainless steel tanks and oak barrels. In 2011 they began producing qvevri wines.

Our first visit of the day was with Nika at his home winery. We discovered that Nika is an artist, sculptor and winemaker. He concentrates his winemaking skills on producing qvevri wines. Nika was born in Tbilisi and lived in Germany for several years. He returned to Georgia and now resides in a small village.

Our next visit was to Teliani Valley a large production winery. We began our visit at the press pad where grapes were dumped into the crusher. We also visited the winery with numerous large stainless steel tanks and oak barrels. Following this we went to another area where several qvevri have been buried. A short time later we were escorted into the large tasting room that had a delightful wine setting.

Our last winery for the day was Our Wine, a small producer of qvevri wines with his own vineyards. We sat at a picnic table in the shade of trees to talk about and taste wine.

We look forward to learning more about qvevri wines.

Cheers,
Kathy