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Shavnabada, Saperavi
More than a few historians believe that wine originated in the Caucasus some 7,000 years ago. But only lately has wine from Georgia, the heart of this region, gotten any attention on our shores. Writer Alice Feiring devoted an entire book to Georgian wine, which has found an eager audience among ‘natural wine’ lovers enamored with the ancient techniques still in regular use there—including, most notably, the practice of fermenting and aging wines in underground, clay-pot fermenters known as qvevri.
This wine is made at a Medieval monastery not far from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and spent nine years buried in the ground before it was bottled. The cork is sealed with beeswax from the monastery’s own hives. But most important of all, the wine is delicious. Crafted from the native Saperavi grape, its appeal extends well beyond romance and/or intellectual curiosity—this is a serious red with age that still has lots left in the tank. If you love to drink old Bordeaux, or mature wine in general, you’ll find a lot to love in this utterly unique, shockingly affordable piece of wine history.
Given the wine’s ancient history (archaeological finds trace Georgian winemaking back to 6,000 B.C.), the first image that pops into my head after a few sips is of a massive cast-iron pot bubbling with some kind of goulash over an open fire. If you want to do a quick decant for sediment, go for it; otherwise, just uncork the bottle and stand it up in a cool place about an hour before serving. Pour, and drink, slowly in large Bordeaux stems (unless you happen to be in possession of the traditional drinking horns called kantsi). There’s a lot going on here. Enjoy!
This wine is made at a Medieval monastery not far from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and spent nine years buried in the ground before it was bottled. The cork is sealed with beeswax from the monastery’s own hives. But most important of all, the wine is delicious. Crafted from the native Saperavi grape, its appeal extends well beyond romance and/or intellectual curiosity—this is a serious red with age that still has lots left in the tank. If you love to drink old Bordeaux, or mature wine in general, you’ll find a lot to love in this utterly unique, shockingly affordable piece of wine history.
Saperavi (literally “paint,” or “dye” in Georgian) is an important native grape as well as a teinturier—meaning it is not only ‘red’-skinned but red-fleshed, leading to deeply colored wines. Young Saperavi is inky and rich, and this decade-old version still has plenty of color concentration (though it is starting to show some bricking along the edges). The grape is thought to have originated in the Kakheti region of southeastern Georgia, where the Shavnabada Monastery, producer of this 2007, is located. Kakheti’s climate is likened to that of southern France, while the soils are a mix of sand and iron- and limestone-infused clays. As in a lot of ex-communist republics, Georgia’s wine industry is still in recovery from decades of nationalized production. As far as we can tell, though, the Shavnabada monastery and its methodologies haven’t changed for centuries.
Shavnabada may as well be a wine museum, and the centerpieces of the historic property are its large, beeswax-lined, terra cotta qvevri. Amphora-shaped and buried up to their necks in the earth, these are the vessels still being used to both ferment and age the wines. This Saperavi, sourced from vineyards tended by local parishoners, was made in the most ‘non-interventionist’ way possible: the foot-trodden grapes went straight into the qvevri in the ground, and after about six weeks the skins were removed and the vessel sealed up. Then they didn’t touch it for nine years—no ‘racking’ from vessel to vessel, no additions of sulfur—and somehow the wine came out balanced and, more notably, fault-free. For a wine made in such a primitive fashion to be technically sound is impressive, to say the least. (Before the qvevri is filled, they burn a sulfur 'candle' in the empty vessel; this is the only sulfur treatment the wine receives).
Last but not least, how does it taste? It’s a big, earthy, tangy red, with huge fruit concentration but high acidity as well. I’m reminded of some of the rustic, big-boned reds of southwest France and southern Italy. In the glass, it displays a deep garnet core with some noticeable bricking around the rim. The heady aromas meld dark-toned fruits such as huckleberry, black raspberry and mulberry with wet roses, paprika, cacao, and a hint of the kind of meaty/iodine note one finds in northern Rhône Syrah. The tannins have had time to soften, and the acidity is still bright but not sharp—the overall effect is rich and palate-coating, with lots of earthy minerality on the finish. It is silky and accessible now at a decade of age, but it should continue to improve over the next 5-7 years.
