It’s was great meeting John Wurdeman of Pheasant’s Tear Winery from Goergia and talk with him about Rkatsiteli, his dry unfiltered amber wine. When we asked John “tell us about your wine as if it were a person” he tould us about a “very tough woman” who comes from Kakheti (in the most eastern part of Goergia) and tells about both the blood that was shed in Kakheti but also that her land and her people are testimonies to being able to endure to not ever breaking.
Then John sad that she would like to travel to countries that cultures who have rich culinary traditions of eating very many diverse courses at once because her freshness and structure can go well with all and there she feels most comfortable. Let’s listen..
Rkatsiteli is golden amber in the glass with a nose of honey, but dry and unexpectedly full-bodied in the mouth with notes of walnut and apricot. Rkatsiteli will stand up well with roasted chicken or more exotic fowl like duck or quail, but won’t overpower lighter fare.
Pheasant’s Tears Winery produces artisanal natural wines according to ancient Georgian traditions. They start by growing Georgian varietals in rare terroir using organic principles to produce luscious, healthy grapes.
All their wines are fermented and aged in qvevri – the large earthenware vessels used for the fermentation, storage and ageing of traditional Georgian wine – lined with organic beeswax and buried in the earth and fermented using naturally occurring yeasts and painstaking attention to achieve wines of character and sophistication deeply rooted in the richness of the Georgian soil and Georgian culture.
Their name comes from a Georgian tale in which the hero claims that only a wine beyond measure could make a pheasant cry tears of joy and they strive to meet that ancient standard in each bottle.
