Nakhshirghele, Georgia
Ramaz Nikoladze is the head of Slow Food in Georgia and he started his small domaine in 2007 just a few kilometers from Kutaisi in the Imereti region on the grounds of his grandparents parcel. Ramaz himself is from this village, same for his parents, he bought his house 6 years ago (pictured on left - it sits on the other
side of the narrow road) and completed the unfinished construction that stood near
the parcel, eventually setting up his cellar on the basement with a few qvevri buried to their neck. Ramaz' own vineyard surface makes 1,5 hectare in total, his yearly production is about 4000 bottles from his own cellar, plus he sells the wine of his wife's uncle who is 82 years old and also makes wine the traditionnal way in a village 30 km from here (makes 2000 bottles more).
To complement his small production Ramaz occasionally looks for local people who have a family parcel and make wine for themselves, if they're interested and after he speaks with them and is sure they work naturally in the vineyard, he can buy them some fruit. Imereti is a region where there's usually no skin maceration (something we in western Europe credit Georgia for doing all the time) during the vinification and Ramaz was the first to introduce some skin contact in the wines here.
The export part for Ramaz' wines is about 80 % and he sells as far as France, Denmark, Germany, the U.K., the United States, Japan and Australia.
Georgia's grape varieties are very different from the ones we're familiar with in the western hemisphere, here is a webpage with grape pictures to begin have a better idea of what this is about.
I was supposed to come with a marshrutka, these convenient vans that are collective taxis on predefined routes in Georgia, but Ramaz texted me that he had something to do in Kutaisi where I was and that he could pick me up at my accomodation, which was nice because it would have been a bit more tricky to find his house compared to Enek's. On the way if I remember we passed abandoned winery facilities
dating from the soviet times, I'd dream to scale the fence and
venture in those ghost factories... In the far from where he lives you could see a mountain range, i think the Georgian mountains which are completely unchartered territory, for us Westerners who don't speak the language, and they certainly hold a wealth of tradition for farming and everything.
Ramaz walked to his small facility on the other side of the small road, that's where he has a small pârcel. There were a few tools outside like a crusher and a couple of basket presses. Until quite recently if I remember, he told me he'd press the grapes with the feet along the tradition but he switched at one point to small presses. In the qvevri room on the street level he shows me a first qvevri where you could see the crushed grapes macerating, I'm not sure I understood the name of the variety even though he pronounced it several times, I think it was Dzelshavi, he had put the grapes in there 3 days before, with a planned total time in there of 2 or 3 months on the skins. The volume of this qvevri is 450 liters, some others in this cellar have different volumes like 800 or 1000 liters.
Pic on left : Ramaz' chai & cellar
Here is a new one-ton qvevri, it is partly burried (due to its size I guess) with the emerging part being insulated in a wooden formwork filled with sand. Ramaz will "inaugurate" it soon with grapes that are going to be
picked, from the local Aladasturi variety (means permitted by Allah,
was named this way during the muslim invasions in the region). This large qvevri (which must have been very arduous to roll inside the room and position here safely) was made by the same people, about 70 kilometers from here (some place with a name that sounds like Tremloana, not sure of the spelling) in a village in the mountains.
During the communist years the ancient knowledge of qvevri making could only survive in remote villages far from the industrialized agriculture plains, it was not favored by the progressive, industrial-minded authorities for whom these were individualistic practices of the past and not efficient enough in terms of volume to quench the thirst of the masses. I guess the compulsory sale of the grapes to the kombinats (large collectivist soviet farms or industries) didn't reach the villages deep in the mountains and the small farmers kept making their own wine and in some instances, their qvevri.
Here is a full qvevri with juice without skin, there are two of them filled with Tsoulikouri that is beginning to ferment. Here Ramaz says there's no need to move the juice, unlike the skin-contact ones where he has to do it, i suppose to avoid the floating cap to get dry. This juice here will stay untouched until the racking. One of the thing that surprises many foreign winemakers in Georgia is the fact that the juice (or the juice with the skins) is left by itself with barely any protection for months, sometimes the qvevri is sealed with a clay cap without any possibility to check how it behaves, and the wine comes out "on its feet", perfectly healthy. It's like this ancient practice of buried qvevri and possibly their clay/beeswax/sand composition has a magic of its own that defies Western enological certainties... It confirms what natural winemakers often say when they're asked how they can eschew the use of sulfur during the vinification : take healthy organic grapes grown on a soil that has been properly tended and respected, and the wine will never go astray, it can even hold oxygen well and get used to it.
In the other vessels in this surface cellar there are two with the same grape variety (Tsoulikouri) but on the skins, and Ramaz says that the fermentation is almost over, there's 1000 liters here. Ramaz will leave it for 3 or 4 months, checking the taste now and then, and when he feels it's enough time, he decants, put aside the juice for the wine and the solid part, the skins for distillation for a chacha (marc). He doesn't sell the chacha, it's just for family consumption, I understand it's complicated on the administrative side if he wanted to sell chacha, with additionnal taxes as well.
In yet another qvevri (the one pictured here if I'm right), it's partial skin maceration of Tsitska (see bottom of this page), meaning the Imeretian methode with just two buckets of skins and the rest being plain juice. When you look at the top you may think it's all skin contact but actually the skins float and hide the juice. Ramaz still has to push the cap from time to time, moving it around gently with the hand.
Here in this amphora there's the juice for which there wasn't room enough in the qvevri, Ramaz offers me to taste, it's been fermenting in there a couple of weeks already. Very turbid white, very vivid with a strong acidity, some lemon peel notes, malolactic not done yet. Still a little bit sugar in there but already beginning to feel like wine.
Here is a small room on the same floor where Ramaz stores his first batch of pet-nats, lying sur lattes and waiting for their disgorgement later. You know that Georgian winemaking techniques (complete with qvevri use and long skin maceration of whites) is making its way into western Europe, but there's emulation the other way around as well, and this pet-nat experiment was initiated by two French guys (Vincent Jullien and Bastien Warskotte) who have been making wine in Georgia for a while and have been making pet-nat here using Georgian varieties with promising results with the good acidity; they kept telling Ramaz to try make some as well, so this year he decided to make a try. Vincent sent him two French guys who worked in his cellar to help for his first vintage of pet-nat, so he says with a smile that this is a French-Georgian colaboration. He used the Tsoulikouri variety here, 200 bottles for this first try.
This is another try with barrels, Bastien who is from the Champagne region brought barrels here for himself (old barrels mostly if i remember) and other winemakers were interested to experiment their use as well. Ramaz had himself never used barrels and no one in his family as well but he decided to try and put the juice in the old barrels last january and bottled 4 months later. Now these barrels will hold the new vintage, the fermentation will still take place in the qvevri with a 4 month time in there, plus another 4 months in the barrels, helping give a different character to the wine.
Here is the bottle room on the same level where Ramaz stores the bottled wine, this room is insulated and kept cool through air-con as summer gets hot in Georgia. For the shipping he and other winemakers bring their bottles to another place where it's easier for the trucks, small volumes being shipped at a time. Ramaz takes a couple of bottles in the cellar so we can taste them together.
__ Tsitska 2018, stayed 4 months in qvevri and 4 months in barrels, this is the first experimentation we talked about, with part of the élevage done in old oak. Asked
if he saw a difference compared the the previous vintages where he made with wine with qvevri only, some roundness in the mouthfeel for example. He doesn't look for oak aromas, just the breathing that can occur in a wooded vessel.
The wine which has a nice golden color is neat, very pure in the mouth, and the aromatics are so different from what we're used at home, and there's this nice bitterness. There was no skin contact in this wine. Goes well with fish, chicken, salad, cheese but for apéritif as well I think like we have it now.
Undoubtly the qvevri is central to the character of these wines as well, some say it's like some sort of terroir that goes into the wine : These vessels are made with specially chosen clay and sand, plus beexwax and you don't make these things like that (although i'm sure some company is going to try produce them in industrial numbers), they're living containers which will breathe and accompany the wine safely without needing the safety net of sulfur. Ramaz don't adds sulfites and his wines are unfiltered.
__ Solikouri 2018, you may have noticed what looks like misspelling : the variety reads normallt Tsolikouri, and Ramaz took the T out because the wine he made here is not fitting with the region's tradition : he made this cuvée with full skin contact (and without the stems, cause brings green notes, needs longer aging before release) while in general in the Imereti region the wine has no skin contact at all. He made his first try this way in 2011, he was taught how to do it by his friend (now deceased) Soliko Tsaishvili who was making wine in the Kakheti region (where skin contact is traditionnal). Ramaz decided to name this cuvée in honor of his friend who passed away two years ago, it can be read like "From Soliko" in Georgian or like the lightly-misspelled local variety (which it is) for those whon don't know the story. In the region he was the first to vinify this way, now some other winemakers do it also here.
Of course the color is marked here with the skin contact, that's why you call them orange wines by the way. Stayed in qvevri for one year, it has been bottled very recently. Very nice mouth touch with the white tannins, hints of orange peel, sweet spices, cinnamon among other things. Also (oddly because no oak at all here) intense aromas of something like exotic wood, all well in line with the spicy notes. Must be great with meat, asian food a well.
I asked Ramaz how he came into contact with Thierry Puzelat, he said he visited one day with 3 other French natural winemakers including Hervé Villemade and they tasted__ drank, he corrected with a smile 21 bottles together with Ramaz.... I agree, that's the real way to test wines down to their limit, only then can you be sure of wines' intrinsic value... They stayed in the house for the night, and as the following day they had no hangover or headache, they ordered his wines... We chat a bout tasting & drinking and Ramaz is fully with me on the notion that tasters who just put a bit of wine in their mouth and spit it after a copuple of seconds can't speak really about what a wine is worth, he says that wine is made for drinking, and if you don't drink a given wine you won't feel its effect on your feeling and mood, happiness, boredom or else... I think there's an alchemy in a wine (a real wine at least) and you just don't gauge it so easily if you don't immerse yourself in its temple...
__ Dzvelshavi 2018, made from his wife's uncle grapes, as said he's an 82-year-old who works totally along the dradition like his ancestors in a village at some distance from here in the mountains. The vinification of this wine took place here, he followed a similar process than for the Tsitska, with 4 months in qvevri on the skins and then 4 months in barriques, it was the first time he made this Dzvelshavi with part aging in oak. You can see these same grapes (of the vintage 2019) macerating right now, see 2nd picture from top. Ramaz makes mostly white, the reds account for only 500 to 1000 bottles.
The color of this wine is gorgeous, so bright and clear. And the alcohol as printed on the label is very low : 11,5 %, Ramaz says that this variety is a low-alcohol one. The vines are something like 35 years old, small parcel. Lovely wine with lovely, chalky tannin feel in the mouth. Should make a killing as well, don't let it pass if you see it especially that the volume is low (400 bottles for this cuvée). Pro price for his bottles, white or reds is 25 Lari or 7,6 €. You can find Ramaz wines in Tbilisi also, at Vino Underground, the natural wine bar, Ramaz by the way was one of the founders of the bar, with John Wurdeman and others, he worked there as manager for 5 years as well.
Asked if he could make more of this wine, Ramaz says that it's difficult to find these grapes, this is not a common variety, i see that as another sililarity with Pineau d'Aunis in the Loire, rare, light and delicious.
Tasting back all these wines all the while chatting, Ramaz brought a couple of hiw own production of chacha, the spirit made by distilling the pomace and the skins. In France the winery has to give the pomace to the French state which uses it to make alcohol (another indirect tax on the back of the wineries - the Law : Les personnes physiques ou morales ou groupement de personnes qui ont procédé à une vinification sont tenues de livrer à la distillation la totalité des sous-produits de cette vinification). Here farmers can make whatever they want with the pomace, dump it, use it as compost or more likely, distill it. As said, Ramaz makes chacha for his own use (setting up a chacha business would be a headache) and he flavors his spirits with herbs, like for one of those i tasted, he put some hawthorn berries in it, these bushes have either red berries or black berries, and he used the black ones.
The nose is very aromatic and expressive. It's pretty strong stuff as well, une boisson d'homme like heard in an iconic movie scene from the early 60s (min 2:28 for these very words - and at min 2:10 comes the word "Brutal" that may have inspired the namesake natural-wine cuvée - The rest of the scene if you're fan is here, a very politically-uncorrect era)... Ramaz says it makes 55 % in alcohol but the aromatics keep above the strength. He stores the sprit in demijohns and put the berries in there too, filling a smal bottle from the demijohn from time to time when he has guests to entertain.
I had a green chacha too (on left in the picture), it's with using green wild leaves from a plant I'd rather not name if you allow me... pretty strong stuff too, possibly stronger but it's the aroma that makes it feel this way. I know several natural winemakers who will rush on this chacha when learning with which plant it was macerated...
At one point a young neighbor walked in and we tasted the wine he brought with him, a Tsolikouri, he made 200 bottles maximum of this wine, vinified in demijohns, no skin contact. Ramaz says that at the beginning he didn't sell much wine in Georgia but now after his wines have been selling successfully abroad he gets orders from Georgian restaurants, wine shops and wine bars, but his limited volume is mostly allocated between his long-time buyers and it is difficult to provide for the Georgian market. I tell Ramaz that the French natural winemakers faced the same issue : very few restaurants or bars would order their wines in the early years in France (in the 1990s), they'd sell most to Japan and the U.S. and then suddenly after the wines were recognized abroad the national market awaked... Ramaz says that in Georgia there's a saying that says something like "you don't trust a priest whom you know". In France we use to say "Nul n'est prophète en son pays"....
We can't write about Georgia and not name the soviet-era Georgian filmmaker Otar Iosseliani, I keep a fond memory of one of his movies named in French Il Etait Une Fois un Merle Chanteur (Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird - link to full movie lower on the page) which I saw in a movie theater a couple decades ago. I was initially looking to link to this full movie but here above is another one of his movies, Giorgobistve (Falling Leaves), it was shot in 1966 and shows a young idealist going to work in a state winery, actually an old winery initially founded in 1780 which is still working with foudres & barrels. You'll also see the daily routine at harvest time in the small farms (the first minutes show locals in remote villages making their own wine), the crushing, the qvevri work and later in the soviet winery you'll learn incidently about what they added in the wine, gelatin for example (something you won't see in a western movie showing a mainstream winery). But foremost you'll have a glimpse about the atmosphere back in those years and the cellar work in another era in Georgia, and this, by a world-class filmmaker. Here is a very interesting interview of Otar Iosselliani in French (English subtitles) dealing with this movie, Falling Leaves.
Comments