Untamed

Georgia is the new top-ranking destination for adventurous wine lovers. If you are looking for new grape varieties, bold tannic flavours, delicious food and breathtaking natural sceneries you won’t be disappointed.

What you’ll discover in these 280 richly illustrated pages:

- Georgia's history, culture and the pivotal role wine plays in it;

- different wine growing regions and their wine maps;

- best terroirs and PDOs;

- most popular endogenous grape varieties;

- unique 8000-year-old winemaking technology that uses skin-contact fermentation and buried ‘Qvevri’ clay-jars  (instead of oak barrels);

Whether you’re a wine professional or an enthusiastic amateur, the book will delight you with insights and anecdotes that you can easily share with your customers and friends:

- Stories of the main historic Estates provide a glimpse of the complex geo-political trends that have shaped the Southern Caucasus; 

- Short profiles of the new generation wine makers explain their struggle to shake off Soviet heritage by going back to ancient customs;

- The very Georgian tradition of Tamada and Supra that calls to mind the philosophical ‘symposiums’ of the ancient Greeks as seen by French philosopher, Michel Eltchaninoff.

A Wheel of Taste to find your favourite Georgian wine

Navigating Georgian grape varieties, with sometimes unpronounceable names, can be a challenge. To help you find the best match, Sarah Abbott MW has created a “wheel of taste” that will help you find the Georgian “equivalent” based on your tastes in popular European wines.

Last but not least, you will discover all 525 endogenous grapes varieties and learn which one was Stalin’s favourite.

The book will prove itself a useful guide to whomever is willing to explore unusual tastes of a country so close and yet so different to Europe.