‘Nino'

Tsistka, Chinuri & Goruli Mstvane, Imereti & Kartli, Georgia

If this is your first sparkling wine from Georgia, it’s your lucky day! You’ve stumbled across one of the finest of the genre from Ori Marani, an incredible natural wine project focusing on traditional-method sparkling wines. The name means “two wineries,” a play on their use of both classically Georgian qvevri (clay amphora pots) & classically French oak – the frisson of these two historic wine dynasties is what makes these wines so compelling. Made in the same style year-to-year with a “reserve perpetuelle” of wine stored in qvevri, Nino has a very classic-elsewhere quality with an undeniable beauty that’s an easily-learnt (and taught!) appreciation. Fermented with wild yeasts in 70-30 old French oak and qvevri, the wine was bottled and rested for 15 months with minimal sulphur and no fining or filtration. Fresh and clear-eyed like a spotless sky with notes of pine nut, bruised apple, cornbread, tree resin and a creamy whiff of savoury eggy bread like the extra-Georgian speciality, khachapuri. There’s even a stylistic nod in that fresh, salty-savoury crispness to Nova Scotia’s Benjamin Bridge, where winemaker Bastien Warskotte worked at for some time, plus a literal nod to Bastien’s wife, Nino. An everyday beauty that just happens to be an exceptional treasure for everyone to enjoy.