The former Soviet satellite state of Georgia, now the Republic of Georgia, is part of the Central Asian isthmus separating the Black and Caspian seas. It is a land whose history is measured not so much in centuries but millennia, and whose culture is rife with legends. Many stem from Greek mythology.
Before delving into that, Georgia requires a better geographical fix.
Straddling Europe and Asia, Georgia is approximately the size of South Carolina and includes a population of approximately 3.7 million.
Its northern frontier follows the axis of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, formed at the same time as the Alps, and includes borders with the republics or independent regions of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachay-Cherkessia.
Between Black and Caspian seas
Georgia abuts Azerbaijan and the vast wastes of Central Asia to the east; to the south, southeast and southwest lie Armenia, the tableaus of Iran, and the most desolate parts of Turkey.
To the west is the Black Sea, under whose surrounding hills lie buried the swords of Huns who long ago brought destruction to the Holy Roman Empire.
Civilization probably took root in Georgia before it did in Mesopotamia. It reaches so far back that the ancient Greeks created myths about what, to them, was a distant, mysterious land on the other side of the world. You know one well.
In the 13th century B.C., Jason and the Argonauts departed Iolcos in Thessaly (northern Greece) in search of the Kingdom of Colchis, a real-life place in what is now western Georgia.
Jason and his band sailed across the Aegean, through the Dardanelles, into the Sea of Mamara, and across the Bosporus and the Black Sea, finally entering the Colchian realm of King Aeetes.
There, Jason found a land rich in gold, iron, timber, and honey. He also famously found the Golden Fleece, the skin of a holy, winged ram. Jason wrested it from a dragon that had been drugged by the sorceress Medea, who had fallen in love with Jason due to the influence of Eros.
From a nearby mountain called Kazbec came another legend, passed down to us as the story of Prometheus, who had stolen fire from the heavens and created man out of clay. As punishment, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock so an eagle could dine on his liver.
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According to a third myth, the Amazons (fierce female warriors) came from Georgia. Colchis also included the sacred grove of Ares, the Greek god of war. The temptress Circe, who could change men into wolves, lions, and swine, dwelt in Colchis.
Yet another myth describes a place in the southwestern part of the country called Mushki. Historians believe that the Mushki king, Mita, may have been Midas, he of the Golden Touch.
It is closer to fact than the mythology that Georgian soil is almost certainly the first place that men cultivated grapevines. China, Lebanon, Iran, Greece, Sicily, and Armenia also claim to be first, but winemaking predates written records. Georgia, where wild grapes flourish, offers the most charming, if not the most compelling, evidence.
Archeological evidence
In Vintage: The Story of Wine, Hugh Johnson wrote, “Archeologists accept accumulation of grape pips as evidence of winemaking. The oldest pips of cultivated vines so far discovered and carbon dated — at least to the satisfaction of their finders — come from Georgia, and belong to the period 7000 to 5000 B.C.”
Johnson’s meticulous book research, conducted in the mid-1980s, received an endorsement in 2018 when archeologists discovered traces of winemaking even older — on 8,000-year-old pottery shards unearthed in Georgia.
Johnson did not need pips to see that the icons in Georgian churches depicted clusters of grapes, while grape motifs decorated Georgian tombstones. Or that, whenever there was talk of Georgia wine, there was also talk of the Georgian Horn, and this is that story:
The Georgians fought their enemies amid the steep peaks of the Caucasus range. They relied on the mountain sheep for meat and admired the animals for their strength and agility.
Ancient Georgians often drank wine from sheep horns. Today, Georgian museums house many of the oldest and elaborately decorated horns. Inscribed on one of them is the phrase, “He who drinks me to the bottom owns me.”
Silk Road crosshairs
Georgia sits in the crosshairs of the old Silk Road, a network of trade routes that connected Asia and Europe. That location made Georgia vulnerable to attack. Conquerors and invaders leveled the capital city of Tiblisi more than 40 times over the centuries.
They pancaked, partitioned, and parceled out portions of Georgia in various battles between the Byzantine and Persian empires, the Arabs and Ottoman Turks, and the Mongol hordes. In the 18th century, Russia commenced an annexation process that culminated in Georgia’s absorption into the former Soviet Union.
Subjugated until the end of the Cold War, and still hounded by Russia today, Georgians never lost their central character or collective temperament, which is a remarkable blend of heroism and calamity.
Georgians exude pride and are fierce, hospitable, loyal, and gregarious. Family and friends mean everything to Georgians, who believe — and this is no myth — that personal worth is judged not by worldly goods, but by the number of one’s friends.
A moveable feast
Georgians revel in food, song, and wine, and have for centuries. A symbol looms on Soloaki Mountain, high above the Old Town in Tbilisi. It is a 55-foot statue of Mother Georgia. In one hand she holds a sword for her enemies. In the other, she offers a cup of wine for her friends.
Georgia is a moveable feast, each meal a theater in permanent performance. Georgian tables sag beneath platter after platter of food: Flatbreads the size of trashcan lids baked fresh daily in the kilns of the Old Town; cheeses, pork, lamb, sturgeon, kidney beans, dumplings, and walnut pates — and that only for starters.
Every time it is time to eat, and in Georgia, it always is, Georgians pile their tables with so much food, the tablecloths practically disappear. Then the wine is poured. Every toast has to have more wine, dinner has to have more wine, and even the wine has to have more wine.
The non-Georgian is ill-equipped for such indulgence, but for Georgians, it is part of their culture and geography.
Twenty-six miles of connecting caves wind through the Caucasus Mountains. The caves conjure up a fabulous story from The Secret of Santa Vittoria, in which peasant Italians in World War II cleverly — and hilariously — hide the town’s wine supply from invading Nazis. Wine, champagne, and brandy, in the hundreds of thousands of barrels, now fill Georgia’s caves.
Many Georgians believe (or perhaps fantasize) that if a war breaks out, they will repair to those caves and drink wine made from nearly 500 varieties of grapes until the fighting ends.
Drink by the hornful
That may or may not be accurate, but Georgians drink wine by the hornful and can do so without regret because their wine is largely free from additives. No hangovers translate into guilt-free imbibing, a marvelous thing.
Georgia’s most significant wine-growing region is Kakheti, in the eastern part of the country, and today Georgia’s most-visited region. For centuries, it served as the entry point for foreign invasions. For many centuries, each village produced unique wine, and villagers haggled over the advantages of their soil versus that of their neighbors.
When harvest arrived, in October, Georgians dipped a ladle into a clay amphora, buried underground where the wine ferments. Then they sampled the fruits of the harvest. In many villages, locals draped grape clusters over cantilevered balconies, the Kakhetian equivalent of silk World Series banners. The result of Kakhetian winemaking occupies a Soviet-style building in Tiblisi.
The wine vault
Thousands of dust-covered bottles of wine stand preserved behind a padlocked door. This place is the Scientific Research Institute of Horticulture, Viticulture, and Wine-Making. It is a tribute to nearly eight centuries of a way of life.
A “tamada” is a banquet-director-emcee who presides over the most elaborate Georgian gatherings. The “tamada” proposes traditional toasts to guests, friends, ladies, family members, relatives, ancestors, motherland, peace, health, and happiness. The “tamada’s” toasts are lengthy and theatrical, and each draws a response from table members. Georgia’s famous “tamadas” make jokes, are quick with their wits, and encourage everybody to laugh and drink.
Toastmaster/emcee
“Tamadas” toast in a specific order: to peace, the reason for the gathering, the hostess, parents, Georgia as motherland, friends, the deceased, life, children, and each guest. After that, all guests toast the “tamada” and also toast to a safe journey home.
While some toasts require drinking to the bottom, tradition calls for spacing out the drinking. It is inappropriate to get drunk. But it is acceptable to sing along with the “tamada” when the moment demands it.
Georgian wine does not share the lofty international reputation of French, Italian, or even California wines. That is not the wine’s fault. It is the political reality of Georgia’s domination and isolation by the Soviet Union, and now by Russia.
Marco Polo, Anton Chekov, and John Steinbeck, none of whom require another introduction, journeyed through Georgia during their careers. All three wrote glowingly about Georgian wine, made from at least 430 grape varieties.
Today, Georgia exports its wine to 53 countries, including the United States, and it still has the best story of all to tell.
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