Description

ABOUT THE PRODUCER:
K’AVSHIRI is a truly extraordinary project, uniting five years of work by British former wine critic and author of over 25 books, Robert Joseph, and Vladimer Kublashvili, highly experienced wine judge and chief winemaker for Winery Khareba one of Georgia’s leading wine companies. The seeds of K’AVSHIRI date back to 1988 when Robert Joseph, made his first trip to Georgia, then still part of the Soviet Union. He was fascinated by the history, language, architecture, delicious east-meets-west cuisine and wines like nothing he had tasted before. In 2018, after several other visits to Georgia, Robert Joseph, who had co-created the innovative le Grand Noir wine range in France, met Kublashvili and was immediately struck by his talent and imagination. While tasting wines from indigenous and often rare Georgian grapes from the Kakheti and Imereti regions, the two men began to imagine the creation of a very special wine.

THE VINTAGE:
This wine is a rare multi-vintage red blend, following in the footsteps of other top quality fine wines. The 2022 Assemblage is 2022: 85%; 2021: 5%; 2020: 10%. Every assemblage will have its own character – and most likely its own combination of grape varieties while remaining true to the K’AVSHIRI style. The back label and website clearly reveal the proportions of each vintage in each blend.

ABOUT THE VINEYARD:
This multi vintage, multi varietal and multi regional blend comes from four regions Kakheti 62%; Imereti 15%; Samegrelo 10%; Racha 13%. The vineyards are planted at various altitudes between 150 to 500 m. The climate is moderately humid with hot summers and moderately cold winters. The soil in Kakheti is clay and loamy with a loose structure while in Imereti, the soils are humic-calcareous and the vineyard is planted on slightly inclined slopes, terraces and plains, all of which are orientated towards the north-west and the west. The vineyard is planted with cover grass between the vines to reduce weeds; the soil is mulched and treated with organic mineral fertilisers. The vines are trained according to the Vertical Shoot Position (VSP) method and are double Guyot pruned.

THE WINEMAKING PROCESS:
The blend comprises: Saperavi (58,3%, one of the few wine grapes with black skins and red juice ), Ojaleshi (14,2%), Aleksandrouli (9,5%), Aladasturi (4,8%), Otskhanuri Sapere (4,7%), Merlot (4,7%), Rkatsiteli (2,4%), Mtsvane (1,4%). The Aladasturi grapes (just under 5% of the blend) were air dried for 10 days Amarone style – Saperavi and Rkatsateli and Saperavi and Mtsvane were co-fermented (90% red grapes: 10% white) in stainless steel to enhance elegance comprising over a third of the blend. 25% of the wine was fermented in Qvevri and 5% of the wine (Saperavi) was matured in 3rd year French barrels for 9 months.

OUR TASTING NOTES:
Deep red in colour, this complex, stylish wine has aromas of plums, cherries and wild berries, with the faintest hint of oak and violets. with unique plum, cherry, wild berry flavours and just a hint of oak. On the palate, the flavours are similar, combining rich, dark berries with bright red cherries and subtle spices, with just a little vanilla. The tannins are present, but polished, and the flavour is very persistent.

GRAPE VARIETY:
Ojaleshi 14%, Aleksandrouli 9%, Aladasturi 5%, Merlot 5%, Otskhanuri Sapere 5%, Mtsvane 2%.