Under the Soviet Union, Georgia’s state-owned vineyards supplied wine to the entire USSR. High-yielding grape varieties led to the gradual extinction of unique Georgian grapevine varieties. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia has come to embrace its 8,000 year old winemaking culture and heritage.

The last quarter of the century has seen a transition from pumping out tons of mass commodity wine to meet Soviet quotas, to a revival in natural organic wine production and consumption.This is thesecond report in a two-part series on wine-making in Georgia.