Bringing you closer to Georgia
by Danilo Di Salvo, co-founder, gvino UK
Our mantra has always been ‘Bringing you the Georgian Wine Experience’ and over the years we have been somewhat successful in that aim. Over 2020, we thought hard about how we can you bring you even close to Georgia and here’s an update..
#1 Georgia
If you haven’t been lucky enough to travel to Georgia then you may not know about some of the truly wonderful elements of the country. Check out one of our previous blogs, which highlights a trip we took a few years ago. Georgia is a complex mix of religion, food, wine and deep history going back thousands of years. In fact, qvevri wine dates back 8000 years. We now know that Georgia actually invented wine. Generally, Georgia is under-represented in European media and so our mission has been to enhance the reputation of a wonderful country in the UK.
#2 How can we bring you closer?
Over the years, we have used social media to promote not only our beautiful wine, but also Georgia as a whole. We use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Further, before 2020 we would engage in a number of live face-to-face wine tastings and wine festivals, that were a great way to interact with everyone from Georgia newbies to experts of life in the Caucuses. One medium that we haven’t made use of is video. In other words, YouTube. For many months, we scanned the horizon for film-makers who could help us bring you closer to the real Georgia and bring wine expertise to the party too. We finally found her:
#3 Introducing you to Tamuka and Adam
Tamuka is the founder and managing director of Georgian and Wine Tourism School and has a Masters in Wine Tourism Innovation from the Université de Bordeaux. We loved her enthusiasm about Georgian wine (naturally) and her international experience. She was a perfect fit for us. After Georgia entered the UK’s red list we had to re-plan my own trip out to Georgia. We really wanted to have a British person to see Georgia from a ‘tourist’s eyes’ and so we had a quick search for a native Brit in Georgia who was happy to be on video. Luckily we found IT Consultant, Adam, who was willing to explore Georgia with Tamuka on film!
#4 What’s the plan?
A grand tour! Tamuka and Adam will tour around Georgia exploring different parts of this mysterious country. We will follow them around through our brand new YouTube channel mini-series due for release in Q4 of 2021. They will start off in the capital, Tbilisi, and head west to Imereti and Racha. Then they also venture East to Kakheti visiting the best vineyards in Georgia at each stop to sample the wine and local food. They will also pop in to watch a Qvevri being made! We will release a brief trailer of the adventure at the Oxford Wine Festival on the 10th and 11th of September.
#5 Whats next?
As we described, we want to bring you closer to Georgia so we have commissioned a second YouTube video focussing on Georgia’s much underrated food. With some help from Georgian Wine UK, we will have arguably the best Georgian chef Meriko Gubeladze talk to us about some special Georgian dishes. Meriko is the head chef at Ninia’s Garden – the coolest restaurant in Tbilisi. We can’t wait to bring you more of the Georgian experience.
