Natural Wines for the best of times, the worst of times and in-between…

Exploring the possibilities of the world's original endemic grape varieties along with the terroirs in which they're grown, sometimes challenging the received wisdom on how the wine is supposed to be made felt like something worth doing. After all we are in a country that has been making wine for longer than any other, with hundreds of varieties grapes that are native to this country, and it would feel like a small act of vandalism to ignore all that and reach for Chardonnay, so we made a rule early on and have kept to it ever since: only Georgian endemic varieties like Tsolikouri, Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Chinuri and Tavkveri and still more to come in future vintages, grapes most people outside this corner of the Caucasus have never tasted, which is rather the point.

Most of these are made the way wine has been made here since long before there were bottles or barrels - in Qvevri, the big egg-shaped clay vessels but we use these above the ground and have them exposed to the elements. Depending on the type of wine we're making the juice ferments in the Qvevri and then either rests on its skins through the cold of winter or ages on the lees - exposed to cold temperatures which help naturally filter the wines - we've always been fans of the micro-oxygenation that the slight porosity of clay gives to the wines and what results are wines that we feel express the characteristics of the varietals and the terroir as accurately as possible - which is central to what we do.

The whole of our winemaking is really an exercise in leaving things out - no cultured yeast, no added acid, no fining and only minimal filtering where it's absolutely needed, nothing to correct or tidy or flatter - because each of those interventions is a way of covering the year up, of making the wine say what you wanted rather than what actually happened in the vineyard and cellar and we would far rather show you the year as it came, the good and the awkward both, and trust that attention in the vines does more than cleverness in the cellar ever could. We've had our share of failures along the way which we have to accept as part of the process of making Natural Wines - that said, when things work out: they really work out.