Vachnadziani Winery Saperavi Classical 2020
£12.75
The wine
Inviting aromas of wild berry, spice and toasty notes prelude a beautifully balanced palate with smoky ripe flavours of plum and earthy undertones. Pure and elegant on the finish.
Classical here means oak-aged in the European manner rather than fermented in qvevri, and Saperavi takes barrel work readily: it has the colour, tannin and acidity to carry it. Kakheti in the east produces the majority of Georgian wine, on the plains and foothills between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus.
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.
