Long Tied to Russia, Georgia’s Winemakers Tip a Glass to the West

It was another abundant and busy harvest in the vineyards of Kakheti, the Republic of Georgia’s famed wine-producing region.

With the green ridges of the Caucasus basking in the sun before him, Levan Eloshvili prepared to drive his rusty Soviet-designed truck with a load of grapes to a sprawling factory nearby. There it will be turned into wine, some of it to be sold to Russia.

At a small winery a few miles away, Kakha Tchotiashvili stirred a fermenting juice of crushed grapes and their skins in traditional clay pots to produce refined reds and oranges destined for trendy restaurants and wine bars in Europe and the United States.

The scenes reflected the two approaches to the future of Georgian winemaking that are being debated across Kakheti and other winemaking regions in the former Soviet republic. Should they be focusing on Russia or the West?

The situation in Kakheti and other wine-producing regions of Georgia reflects a country long torn between great power interests. Many people, particularly younger ones and those living in big cities, want to forge closer ties with Europe, where they see their political future. Others believe it is important to maintain economic stability and therefore stay close to Russia.

The fortunes of Georgia’s winemakers have long been tied to Russia, their biggest market, and one that has grown since sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine cut off a flow of Italian and French wines.

Now many winemakers say it’s time to break that dependence, which comes with considerable political risk, and focus more on European and American markets.

Mr. Tchotiashvili, for one, sees a bright future for Georgian winemakers if they can break away from Russia and move up the value chain by selling carefully crafted wines in the West. While big winemakers are likely to remain dependent on the Russian market, he said there are benefits to staying small and earning more per bottle in Europe and the United States.

He said he and his team proudly signed the labels of each of the 50,000 bottles they produce in a typical year. “We are not simply selling wine, we are selling our culture,” Mr. Tchotiashvili said as he poured a glass of Chitistvala, an amber-colored dry wine, in his tasting hall. (With notes of pineapple, it was delicate and delicious.) “We don’t have oil in Georgia, but we have wine,” he joked.

For the most part, the wines sold to Russia are sweeter and cheaper varieties sold in bulk that might go for a few dollars per bottle in a supermarket, a fraction of prices in boutique wine shops in the West.

“A good direction is getting away from the Russian market” and looking for more profitable outlets, said Tina Kezeli, the head of Georgia’s wine association.

That is partly because, she said, the Russian market “has always been very political,” including a ban on Georgian wines by Moscow after a dispute between the two countries in the 2000s. In Russia, she said, “everything is used as a tool: Either you behave or we close the market.”

Following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, some Georgian winemakers refused to sell to Russia. But others increased their shares of the Russian market.

The gains were mostly enjoyed by the country’s big wine companies, like Badagoni, that sell a lot of cheaper bottles. But even high-end producers saw an opportunity, and pricey Georgian wines also appear on tables at expensive restaurants in Moscow.

So far this year, almost 70 percent of Georgia’s production, worth more than $214 million, has been exported to Russia, according to Georgian state statistics, an increase of more than 54 percent from a similar period in 2021, before the war.

For many Georgians the debate over the future of the wine industry is intensely personal.

Wine has been cultivated continuously in Georgia for more than 8,000 years and is highly wrapped up in the country’s identity. It often appears as if every Georgian is a winemaker, and many homes have marani, or traditional wine cellars.

One of the nation’s main Christian relics is a grapevine cross. Toastmaking and elaborate feasts with copious amounts of wine are part of the fabric of life in Georgia.

In the country’s villages, visitors cannot walk into a house without being invited to inspect its marani and taste wine from qvevri — clay pots buried in the ground that act as natural thermoses for fermentation, storage and aging.

When Georgia was part of the Soviet Union, individual winemaking was prohibited, though many Georgians still produced wine in their cellars, mainly for personal use. Wine manufactured at Soviet factories was typically of low quality and usually sweet. (Legends still abound across the former Soviet Union that the semisweet Khvanchkara variety was nonetheless a favorite of Stalin, who was from Georgia.)

“A lot of wine just wasn’t very good,” said Robert Joseph, a British wine critic who first visited Georgia in 1988.

Over the past two decades, Mr. Joseph said he witnessed a major transformation of the Georgian wine industry. While the industrial production of cheap wines surged, enthusiasts using traditional methods began making smaller quantities of higher quality wine mostly sold in the West.

Giorgi Dakishvili was one of the pioneers of the latter group. Born to a family of winemakers — his father supervised the production of Saperavi, the preferred red of Soviet elites — Mr. Dakishvili was among the first to bottle traditional amber-colored wines made in qvevri in the early 2000s. At first, he said, he had to include a leaflet explaining that the wines were meant to be that color when he sold to restaurants in Tbilisi.

Today his wines are mainly sold in boutiques in Britain, Japan and the United States, as well as in small amounts in Russia.

“The Russian market is an easy market because our wines are well-known and winemakers don’t need to invest money to increase awareness,” Mr. Dakishvili said. “At the same time it is very unstable for political reasons.”

In 2006, following a deterioration in relations between the Kremlin and a new pro-Western government in Tbilisi, Russia banned imports of Georgian wine. The ban lasted seven years, forcing many wineries in Kakheti into bankruptcy. But others were motivated to innovate and seek out other markets.

“I want to thank the Russian embargo because without these terrible times we would need much more time to achieve the current situation,” Mr. Dakishvili said. “But it would also be absolutely un-pragmatic to stop commercial communications with Russia.”

Zurab Mgvdliashvili, the owner of Nikalas Marani, a company that specializes in natural wines — which use grapes farmed without the use of chemicals and are made with minimal manipulations and additions — in his village of Kardakhi in eastern Kakheti, said he refused to sell wine to the Russian market.

“I just don’t like Russia,” said Mr. Mgvdliashvili, who is also the head of Georgia’s Natural Wine Association. “I would think whether to continue as a winemaker or sell to Russia.”

The production capabilities of the small winemakers pale in comparison to the industrial-scale ones serving Russia.

Mr. Mgvdliashvili produces 10,000 bottles of natural wine a year, much of it sold in New York. By comparison, Mildiani, a major Georgian wine factory, can send tens of thousands of bottles to Russia in a single batch.

While Mr. Mgvdliashvili’s wines cost around $18 at his winery, Russian retail chains buy mass-produced Georgian wines at around $2.10 per bottle.

Mr. Joseph, the wine critic, has been working with Vladimer Kublashvili, chief winemaker at Khareba, the biggest estate winery in Georgia, on a project to create a high-quality wine that they hope can also be sold in large quantities in the West.

“As a responsible wine producer, we are always trying to reach other wine markets around the world,” said Mr. Kublashvili.

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