Georgia, the country not the state, produces 8,000 vintages by some counts and is in a region that lays claim to be the birthplace of wine. Wall Street Journal wine correspondent Alice Feiring visited the country recently and produced an oenophile’s travelogue, For the Love of Wine: My Odyssey through the World’s Most Ancient Wine Culture. She found that the Georgians continue to cultivate wine according to age-old methods.
One of the secrets behind their wine (she describes “explosions of blossom water and honey without the sweetness”) is the practice of aging the nectar in huge earthenware vats rather than wooden kegs—a method that has gained international attention. That attention has drawn the greedy eyes of global conglomerates, but Feiring finds evidence that many young vintners are prepared to stand by tradition.
