Wine Wednesday: Purity in Chinuri
I am starting to love wine Wednesday. It is an excuse for me to open up some bottles I have been saving (hoarding?), and the memories of the first time I drank the wine or met the winemaker flood my mind. Wine is like that
This week, my Georgian wine is a 2015 Art Villa Garikula. A stunning sparkling wine made by a French ex-patriot living in Georgia. Vincent Jullien was the first to make Pétillant Natural wine in Georgia.
This wine is a symphony written for dancers. It is a he makes his with a Chinuri Mtsvane Goruli blend from Ateni, a region in Kartli that has Georgia’s best potential for making world renowned Sparkling wines. In Soviet times, the area was given over to fruit production, but more and more wine producers are investing in the its potential. Made in steel tanks and then reconditioned in the bottle and disgorged, so his wine is not sur lie (on the yeasts). It has of a suggestion of must aroma and citrus, followed by citrus flowers, cold mountain air and liberality. On the palate it had just the slightest residual sugar that danced on the tongue. A truly well made wine.