10th New Wine Festival to take place in May
By Mariam Chanishvili
Thursday, March 7
The 10th New Wine Festival will be held on May 11. This year marks the 10th Anniversary since the foundation of the Wine Club and the event will take place at Mtatsminda Park.
Georgian National Wine Agency and Tbilisi City Hall are officially supporting the festival. Other respected partners of the event are Mtatsminda Park, g. Vino wine bar, the website Marani (vinoge.com), Wine Information Center, radio Utsnobi, Jaco FM, the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.
Pre-festival wine-tasting will be held on May 4, featuring over 10 wines of 2009-2010 to celebrate the tenth birthday of the Club and the Festival.
Large wine companies, medium and small winemakers of different regions of Georgia, along with family wine cellars, will offer the Festival guests their best wines of the last harvest (2018).
The guests will discover new tastes and have an opportunity to learn more about the wine we taste and appreciate when meeting the winemakers in person.
The new Wine Festival 2019 will start with the traditional Qvevri opening ceremony, accompanied by the Georgian song Mravaljamieri. As a rule, the Qvevri features the best wine made in the family wine cellar, carefully selected by the Wine Club.
The New Wine Festival - an event aimed at promoting Georgian wine and related culture - is held annually in Tbilisi.
Usually, the festival is held in one of the green areas in Tbilisi at the beginning of May.
The Wine Club brings together people from different professions – journalists, archaeologists, writers, wine-makers, farmers, students, etc. – who share a passion for wine and food. The Club was established in August 2009 and immediately began to attempt to solve problems in the Georgian wine-making industry.
One of the Club's main activities is organizing expeditions to different regions of Georgia in order to identify problems which wine-makers may face.
The Wine Club is also committed to educational programs and has already published several brochures and books such as Georgia – The Cradle of Wine (2010, in English) and Pairing Georgian Wines and Georgian Dishes (2011, in Georgian).
Georgia is one of the oldest wine regions in the world. Archaeological excavations have uncovered that vine was first cultivated in at least 6000-8000 BC on the territory of Georgia. From 4000 BC ancient Georgians were burying clay vessels (Qvevri) in which wine was stored and fermented. Qvevris come in every shape and size and this tradition of wine-making is still present in Georgia.
