Vachnadziani Winery Krakhuna 2024
£12.25
The wine
Krakhuna comes from Imereti in western Georgia rather than Kakheti in the east, and it is a rarity even at home. It gives a fuller, more textured white than Rkatsiteli, with ripe orchard and stone fruit and a honeyed weight, held together by good natural acidity.
Western Georgia has a wetter, more humid climate than the east and its own winemaking traditions, using smaller qvevri and shorter skin contact. Krakhuna nearly disappeared during the Soviet era, when production was concentrated on a handful of high-yielding varieties, and it is grown now in very small quantity.
The producer
Vachnadziani Winery
View all Vachnadziani Winery winesVachnadziani was established in 1953 and is among the oldest wineries in Georgia. The vineyards fell into disrepair through the later Soviet years and have since received considerable investment, with the stated aim of preserving an ancient wine culture while applying modern technology to it.
Georgia has a fair claim to being the cradle of wine. Grape seeds and residue found in clay vessels in the country date back some 8,000 years, making it the earliest known winemaking anywhere, and the tradition never stopped. The qvevri, a large egg-shaped clay vessel buried to the neck in the ground, is still in use, and UNESCO recognised the method as intangible cultural heritage in 2013.
The winery farms over 1,000 hectares across Kakheti in the east, where most Georgian wine is made, and Imereti, Racha and Lechkhumi in the west. The grapes are almost entirely native: Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane for whites, Krakhuna from Imereti, and Saperavi, one of the very few red varieties in the world with red flesh as well as red skin.
