CZECHIA
DVA DUBY
PETR KORÁB
JAROSLAV OSIČKA
PETRA BREDOVA
TŘI ČTVRTĚ
GEORGIA
AMIRAN VEPKHVADZE
CHITO'S GVINO
GOTSA FAMILY WINERY
JAKELI
GIA JAMBERIDZE
ORI MARANI
PAPARI VALLEY
GAIOZ SOPROMADZE
SLOVAKIA
PIVNICA ČAJKOV
DAVID KUŠICKÝ
MARVLA TINDO
UNITED CELLARS
OF TEKOV
SLOVENIA
KABAJ
KORENIKA & MOŠKON
ŠTEMBERGER
ZARO
COLLABORATIONS
BRDA BELO
CONSCIOUS EXIT
EAZY ORANŽNA
EAZY REFOŠK
GRAPE ALE
SHAVI K’RAVI
THE RIDERS
︎ ︎
Black Lamb: Before you were a winemaker you were an architect. What led you to this career?
Beka: It happened when I was 13-14 years old, my Uncle was an Architect and I would visit him where he worked, all the equipment he was using for drawings inspired me to become an architect, also my father is an artist so I grew up around drawings and paintings. My labels are sections of my fathers paintings.
Black Lamb: What inspired you to make wine?
Beka: As a student my friends and I drank only wine, we liked to drink together at each other's homes but we had to drink bad wine because this was the communist period and there was no market for artisan wine, we could only buy low quality wines. We could only find good wine when we traveled to countryside villages. Eventually we decided to make our own wine. It was around 1982 or 83’. The first wine that inspired me was that first wine we made in my basement, of course it was not great but for me it was very important. We did it! We had our own wine!
Black Lamb: When and why did you decide to make wine commercially?
Beka: 2010 was my first commercial vintage: I made Kakhuri Mtsvane and Saperavi. My Dutch friend Daniel Hooft owned a vineyard in Georgia. We had some other commercial projects and we decided to make a wine together for him to sell in Holland. He gave me grapes and I made the wine.
Black Lamb: What makes your location special? What are the biggest geographical and climatic influences on your wines?
Beka: Dry place with medium temperatures, maybe it is a semi-desert, but with a lot of different nature biologically rich and clean soil. There is nobody around me. No neighbors, industrial activities or even agriculture.
Black Lamb: Before you determined where you would plant your vineyards you planted corn and barley to evaluate different locations. What information did you gain and why did you pick the location you did?
Beka: I have a summer house in the mountains in Kiketi where I made my first wines and where my cellar is located. From the balcony of this house is a very nice view, down of the Algeti National Park, you can also see the village of Asureti where my vineyard is. It is only 10 km from my place. Historically the Asureti area was well known as a good place for wine making so I decided to go there to meet the people and study them. Are they good workers? Are they good people? Planting a vineyard is a big investment and because of that you must always know: 1. Is the soil good to make block buster wines 2. Climate 3. People with whom you must do a lot of work. 4. You must test wines made by locals, etc. My objective was to study all these things. I was planting corn and barley in territories around the village. The harvest was not for sale, I gave it to the people who were helping me and after 3 years working together I decided where the best place for my vineyard was. I got a lot of friends there and in 2012 we began planting.
Black Lamb: When did you apply for organic certification?
Beka: I began planting my vineyard in 2012. From the beginning I cultivated the vineyards according to Organic and Biodynamic certification. Organic only came first because it is a requirement of Biodynamic certification.
Black Lamb: What biodynamic preparations come from your land?
Beka: I'm buying all biodynamic preparations in France, because I want to have the best quality. Winemaking is a very difficult business, it's a lot of work. I don't have time to produce many of the peperations myself, and do not trust my ability to produce them correctly. When I better understand my place, the soil, the climate, then slowly I hope to transfer part of my work to my children, then maybe I will begin to produce my own treatments. At this moment I'm producing only compost next to the vineyards. My philosophy is to give everything we take from the soil back to it. We have a special machine which shreds all of what is pruned into small pieces. Leaves fall down in the vineyard and are left to desiccate. After pressings I bring the skins and stems back to the vineyard and make compost by adding biodynamic preparations. Ultimately, we are only taking juice from the vines and I'm 100% sure this method will give us the possibility to have healthy soil, healthy vines, healthy grapes and finally healthy natural wines, which will give you the real taste of my terroir.
Black Lamb: How do you use your drip lines?
Beka: No. Treatments through drip irrigation are common in conventional farming because it allows for increased yields, I needed drip irrigation, because it was impossible to establish young vines where I planted without, it's a very dry place, we have no more than 400 mm of rainfall per year, but as the vineyard establishes itself I need less water. Additionally drip irrigation gives me the possibility to regulate the stress of the vines. Optimally, vines must always be slightly stressed to give good grapes for winemaking, but this stress must be in the range which will not stop maturation from proceeding. This is the goal. It is my expectation that in time we will not need to irrigate the vines. Important for the future is that drip irrigation gives me the possibility to sleep well, because if in some year there will be no rainfall my 22,000 children will be secured and not die.
Black Lamb: What animal treatment do you incorporate?
Beka: Cow manure in small quantities is mixed with the grape discard to make a compost.
Black Lamb: What differences in the vineyards have you seen since converting to biodynamic?
Beka: It's difficult to tell because the farming has been biodynamic from the start, but there are signs of the effectiveness of this approach. For instance when we spray the silica treatment [501] the leaves develop a glossy greeness. The preparation is intended to improve photosynthesis on hot dry dates and this means a lot of food for the roots. In our dry climate this is very important.
Black Lamb: You had to replace hundreds of vines that could not tolerate the conditions and decided to replace them by planting young vines in barrels and hand watering them?
Beka: Yes, because it is really impossible to grow small plants in established vineyards. Planting them in barrels raises them off the ground and gives them a chance to survive.
Black Lamb: Who were the Georgian kings that made their wine in Kiketi where you have your marani?
Beka: Vakhtang VI, the last king in our region Kartli. Vakhtang VI was a crazy fighter. He had his royal wines made close to Kiketi, in the village of Kodjori. For them the idea was to use the cool location to make sweet or semi-sweet wines in the mountain cellars utilizing the cool ambient temperature. There is this story that the warriors gained magical powers from the wine and were unbeatable. Like us Georgians today.
Black Lamb: Did you choose the location for the cool cellar or was Kiketi just a place you wanted to be?
Beka: It was just a place that I just wanted to be, coincidentally the cool ambient temperature changed my winemaking. I didn't need a cooling system. This energy and money saving is a step to solve ecological problems. My location requires less consumption of energy and gives better results.
Black Lamb: Where did you get the idea for gravity flow kvevri? Where did the idea come from?
Beka: I read in wine books that pumping wine damages the aging possibility of young wines. It is almost impossible to remove wine from kvevri without a pump as it is buried. Having kvevri at two levels, and drilling holes in the bottoms fitted with tubing that connects to my cellar allowed me to use gravity to move the wine. Also less electricity.
What about the idea for silicone tubes around the outside of the kvevri? Did it come from the archeological find of the kvevri with clay work that appeared to be for cooling?
Beka: My idea for cooling tubes around the kvevri comes from architectural education of engineering systems, same concept as floor heating. Later a Kvevri with clay tubes around the outside surface was discovered. In principle it is likely the same idea. Cool the kvevri with spring water that flows from above. Again no electricity. We only use electricity to pump the warm water back to the house where we have an indoor pool.
Black Lamb: What is special about your yeast? Does it come from the vineyard or the cellar?
Beka: From both places, they are my best friends.
Black Lamb: What is your process for cleaning the Kvevri?
Beka: High pressure water pump, and water mixed with Lemon acid and sulfur.
Black Lamb: Do all the wines go through malolactic fermentation?
Beka: yes, because the winemaking process is always regulated by nature not by me. And skin and stem contact wines usually go through malo.
Black Lamb: I may have more questions but answering these would be a big help!
Beka: Stetson you want me to write a book about myself?
Beka: It happened when I was 13-14 years old, my Uncle was an Architect and I would visit him where he worked, all the equipment he was using for drawings inspired me to become an architect, also my father is an artist so I grew up around drawings and paintings. My labels are sections of my fathers paintings.
Black Lamb: What inspired you to make wine?
Beka: As a student my friends and I drank only wine, we liked to drink together at each other's homes but we had to drink bad wine because this was the communist period and there was no market for artisan wine, we could only buy low quality wines. We could only find good wine when we traveled to countryside villages. Eventually we decided to make our own wine. It was around 1982 or 83’. The first wine that inspired me was that first wine we made in my basement, of course it was not great but for me it was very important. We did it! We had our own wine!
Black Lamb: When and why did you decide to make wine commercially?
Beka: 2010 was my first commercial vintage: I made Kakhuri Mtsvane and Saperavi. My Dutch friend Daniel Hooft owned a vineyard in Georgia. We had some other commercial projects and we decided to make a wine together for him to sell in Holland. He gave me grapes and I made the wine.
THE VINEYARD
Black Lamb: What makes your location special? What are the biggest geographical and climatic influences on your wines?
Beka: Dry place with medium temperatures, maybe it is a semi-desert, but with a lot of different nature biologically rich and clean soil. There is nobody around me. No neighbors, industrial activities or even agriculture.
Black Lamb: Before you determined where you would plant your vineyards you planted corn and barley to evaluate different locations. What information did you gain and why did you pick the location you did?
Beka: I have a summer house in the mountains in Kiketi where I made my first wines and where my cellar is located. From the balcony of this house is a very nice view, down of the Algeti National Park, you can also see the village of Asureti where my vineyard is. It is only 10 km from my place. Historically the Asureti area was well known as a good place for wine making so I decided to go there to meet the people and study them. Are they good workers? Are they good people? Planting a vineyard is a big investment and because of that you must always know: 1. Is the soil good to make block buster wines 2. Climate 3. People with whom you must do a lot of work. 4. You must test wines made by locals, etc. My objective was to study all these things. I was planting corn and barley in territories around the village. The harvest was not for sale, I gave it to the people who were helping me and after 3 years working together I decided where the best place for my vineyard was. I got a lot of friends there and in 2012 we began planting.
Black Lamb: When did you apply for organic certification?
Beka: I began planting my vineyard in 2012. From the beginning I cultivated the vineyards according to Organic and Biodynamic certification. Organic only came first because it is a requirement of Biodynamic certification.
Black Lamb: What biodynamic preparations come from your land?
Beka: I'm buying all biodynamic preparations in France, because I want to have the best quality. Winemaking is a very difficult business, it's a lot of work. I don't have time to produce many of the peperations myself, and do not trust my ability to produce them correctly. When I better understand my place, the soil, the climate, then slowly I hope to transfer part of my work to my children, then maybe I will begin to produce my own treatments. At this moment I'm producing only compost next to the vineyards. My philosophy is to give everything we take from the soil back to it. We have a special machine which shreds all of what is pruned into small pieces. Leaves fall down in the vineyard and are left to desiccate. After pressings I bring the skins and stems back to the vineyard and make compost by adding biodynamic preparations. Ultimately, we are only taking juice from the vines and I'm 100% sure this method will give us the possibility to have healthy soil, healthy vines, healthy grapes and finally healthy natural wines, which will give you the real taste of my terroir.
Black Lamb: How do you use your drip lines?
Beka: No. Treatments through drip irrigation are common in conventional farming because it allows for increased yields, I needed drip irrigation, because it was impossible to establish young vines where I planted without, it's a very dry place, we have no more than 400 mm of rainfall per year, but as the vineyard establishes itself I need less water. Additionally drip irrigation gives me the possibility to regulate the stress of the vines. Optimally, vines must always be slightly stressed to give good grapes for winemaking, but this stress must be in the range which will not stop maturation from proceeding. This is the goal. It is my expectation that in time we will not need to irrigate the vines. Important for the future is that drip irrigation gives me the possibility to sleep well, because if in some year there will be no rainfall my 22,000 children will be secured and not die.
Black Lamb: What animal treatment do you incorporate?
Beka: Cow manure in small quantities is mixed with the grape discard to make a compost.
Black Lamb: What differences in the vineyards have you seen since converting to biodynamic?
Beka: It's difficult to tell because the farming has been biodynamic from the start, but there are signs of the effectiveness of this approach. For instance when we spray the silica treatment [501] the leaves develop a glossy greeness. The preparation is intended to improve photosynthesis on hot dry dates and this means a lot of food for the roots. In our dry climate this is very important.
Black Lamb: You had to replace hundreds of vines that could not tolerate the conditions and decided to replace them by planting young vines in barrels and hand watering them?
Beka: Yes, because it is really impossible to grow small plants in established vineyards. Planting them in barrels raises them off the ground and gives them a chance to survive.
THE CELLAR
Black Lamb: Who were the Georgian kings that made their wine in Kiketi where you have your marani?
Beka: Vakhtang VI, the last king in our region Kartli. Vakhtang VI was a crazy fighter. He had his royal wines made close to Kiketi, in the village of Kodjori. For them the idea was to use the cool location to make sweet or semi-sweet wines in the mountain cellars utilizing the cool ambient temperature. There is this story that the warriors gained magical powers from the wine and were unbeatable. Like us Georgians today.
Black Lamb: Did you choose the location for the cool cellar or was Kiketi just a place you wanted to be?
Beka: It was just a place that I just wanted to be, coincidentally the cool ambient temperature changed my winemaking. I didn't need a cooling system. This energy and money saving is a step to solve ecological problems. My location requires less consumption of energy and gives better results.
Black Lamb: Where did you get the idea for gravity flow kvevri? Where did the idea come from?
Beka: I read in wine books that pumping wine damages the aging possibility of young wines. It is almost impossible to remove wine from kvevri without a pump as it is buried. Having kvevri at two levels, and drilling holes in the bottoms fitted with tubing that connects to my cellar allowed me to use gravity to move the wine. Also less electricity.
What about the idea for silicone tubes around the outside of the kvevri? Did it come from the archeological find of the kvevri with clay work that appeared to be for cooling?
Beka: My idea for cooling tubes around the kvevri comes from architectural education of engineering systems, same concept as floor heating. Later a Kvevri with clay tubes around the outside surface was discovered. In principle it is likely the same idea. Cool the kvevri with spring water that flows from above. Again no electricity. We only use electricity to pump the warm water back to the house where we have an indoor pool.
Black Lamb: What is special about your yeast? Does it come from the vineyard or the cellar?
Beka: From both places, they are my best friends.
Black Lamb: What is your process for cleaning the Kvevri?
Beka: High pressure water pump, and water mixed with Lemon acid and sulfur.
Black Lamb: Do all the wines go through malolactic fermentation?
Beka: yes, because the winemaking process is always regulated by nature not by me. And skin and stem contact wines usually go through malo.
Black Lamb: I may have more questions but answering these would be a big help!
Beka: Stetson you want me to write a book about myself?