Female Georgian Winemakers to Hold Tastings Across US This Week

Five successful female Georgian winemakers will be exhibiting their wines at tasting events across the United States this week.

Tastings will be held at bars and restaurants that feature Georgian wines in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The tastings will run from Saturday, March 9 to Friday, March 15 and feature wines from five of Georgia’s most prolific winemaking women.

One of the participants, Keto Ninidze, founder and lead farmer of ODA Wines, told BM.ge that “wine tasting will be held in those wine bars, restaurants and wine stores, which were the first ones to popularize Georgian wines in the USA. They include: Brumaire, Wildair, Uva Wine & Spirits, and Astor Wine & Spirits. This is a long list. Tasting will be conducted by wine professionals.”

Ninidze will offer tasters three less common varieties of Georgian wine: shishveli ojaleshi, dzelshavi, and orbaluri ojaleshi. ODA has been selling wine in the United States for the last two years, at $25 (GEL 67) a bottle. They also export their wine to Japan, Germany, and Israel – some of the fastest growing export destinations for the country’s wines, alongside the top countries for exports: Russia, Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan, and Poland.

Also presenting their wines to American consumers will be Gogowine, represented by Keti Berishvili, Tamuna Wine founded by Tamuna Bidinashvili, Mavino founded by Marina Kurtanidze, and Freya’s Wine Cellar created by American transplant to Georgia Enek Paterson.

Gogowine’s Beriashvili (gogo means “girl” in Georgian) is just 30 years old. Trained as a PR specialist, she decided to join her family’s winemaking business, starting with a small vineyard of her own. Her wines are sold at organic wine shops in Georgia. “I have just realized I found something I am really interested in. It gives me great pleasure to be here. Only a year ago, I knew very few things about this business and now I am much more experienced. Last year’s harvest taught me a lot,” Beriashvili said in a 2016 interview with Georgian Journal.

Tamuna Bidinashvili makes her wine in the village of Gremi in Kakheti. She has been making small batch, high quality wine from her vineyards there since 2014.

Mavino is Marina Kurtanidze’s encore to her successful partnership with fellow Georgian wine woman Tea Melanashvili under the brand Mandili – one of the first Georgian wine companies established by all women, in 2012. Now, Mavino exports its qvevri wines to England, France, USA, Spain, Denmark, and Japan.

Freya’s Wine Cellar is the work of 25 year old Enek Freya Peterson, a native of Boston who has lived in Georgia for several years, following her passion for the local culture and wine. She soon purchased a vineyard and has been making her own natural, qvevri wine for the past four years.

This handful of female winemakers are helping to open the US market for Georgian wines, and proving to local traditionalists that wine is not just a boys’ club. In the United States, Georgian wines often have a special following among natural wine lovers, and is slowly gaining traction among connoisseurs. In the first two months of 2019, Georgian winemakers exported 12 million bottles of wine for a total of $30 million (GEL 80.4 mln). A small fraction of that, just 128,145 bottles, went to the United States.

By Samantha Guthrie