Le Carton | Georgian wine dinner (გამარჯობა)

     

In October we took 2.5 days to cook a table full of Georgian food for 25 people to soak up 3 trips worth of wine. That afternoon we got through 31 bottles* from 12 different producers** plus a litre of cha cha and at least two toasts and to think we thought, Oh it's Sunday, we'd better save everyone a cork.

Thanks to everyone we didn't know who came and said it felt like Georgia when you left. And to everyone we knew who still came and we still know and said let's do it again and 'I didn't have a single bad wine' and the girl who said she'd like us to throw a party in her living room (CALL ME) — thanks to y'all too.

Thanks also to the Georgians for your wines and your recipes, and especially to Ènek for checking we bought the right spices and wrote the right facts.

I took some pictures before it got dark. Unfortunately this was also before the food was out of the oven and anyone was there.

გაუმარჯოს!


*6 of them are in my Christmas guide for The Morning Claret.

** Ramaz Nikoladze (Imereti) — Mariam Iosebidze (Kartli) — Ének Peterson (Imereti) — Didimi (Imereti) — Georgian Vine Foundation (Kakheti) — Lagazi (Tusheti) — Vino Martville (Samagrello) — Pheasant's Tears (Kakheti) — Jeremy and Emily (Racha) — The Wine Thieves (Kakheti) — Zurab Topuridze (Guria) — Giorgi Makaridze (Imereti)

    

   

        

'Tsolikouri - Krakhuna' (no skins) 2016, Ènek Peterson

Me on  drinking what we bottled in June in October while sorting grapes: 'Cool, this is the second time I've drunk from this bottle'.

Me on the time we went down Ènek's qvevri for The Morning Claret.

Me on the one bottle* I have writable memory of after drinking bottles and bottles of the stuff for three days: 

Tasting notes:

Looks like dappled light across an orange ocean floor.

Smells like dry mandarins and crystal honey.

Tastes like sunshine zest. A Krakhuna-forward tropical fruit salad with stems on.

Feels like jello going down so, supple. Here be no angles.

//

Tsolikouri - Krakhuna 2016

Ènek Peterson

Tsolikouri + Krakhuna (no skins, 3 x on lees)

Imerti, Georgia

We'll be pouring Ènek's wines, both skins and no skins, all without etiquettes, all 2016, for Le Carton's Georgian Wine Dinner on 29 October.

*Perhaps interesting to note that this is the one bottle of Ènek's we didn't drink with Ènek, hence some memory. (Hey Ènek!)