Day Drinking, Pt. 2

Georgians swear that natural wine does not give you a hangover, but something is keeping us in bed watching superhero series on Netflix and it is not the compelling storylines. Vato Botsvadze, owner of Chacha Corner was also at Zero Compromise yesterday. He will insist in all seriousness that his morning headache was a result of the rain, which stopped just before the greatest party in Georgia started. We’re talking about the eighth New Wine Festival, organized by the Georgian Wine Club, a group of over a half dozen wine enthusiasts who have been at the forefront of developing, promoting and educating people about Georgian wine since 2007, when they turned their internet forum into a blog and started hosting wine tastings across the country.

Day Drinking

About 70 winemakers have set up tables around the perimeter of an old Soviet era sewing factory loft. There are a couple hundred wine lovers, wine freaks and industry professionals packed in here swirling, sniffing and tasting some truly mind-boggling wine. This is the Zero Compromise Natural Wine Fair, a festival celebrating vintages whose grapes were grown organically, with no yeasts or sulfites added in the cellar. This is pure, unadulterated nectar, the way the gods intended wine to be made, and much like Georgians have been doing it for 8000 years. The Fair is the brainchild of the Natural Wine Association, a union of ten viticulturists and wine-makers who are wholly committed to organic or biodynamic methods. We have been looking forward to this day for 365 days, since our first Zero Compromise experience last year, at Vino Underground.

Alubali

Going to dinner at a Georgian restaurant typically means having to fast all day. The table will bulge with must-orders: tomato and cucumber salad, badrijani (eggplant stuffed with garlic and walnuts), an assortment of cheeses and wild greens, and probably pkhali (vegetable pate with walnuts) too. There will be meat, lots of meat – lamb, pork, veal and chicken that will be stewed, baked and roasted – and bread to clean the plate with. Perhaps there will be a grilled trout. And don’t forget the khachapuri, because that is just the way it is. After several hours at the table, we will make our final toasts, take one last look at the leftovers, maybe snatch a farewell nibble at a loose chive or slice of cucumber and then waddle out of the joint, with greasy grins and logy eyelids. We grunt while we plop into the taxi and groan as we struggle to climb out when we get home.

Strawberry Season in Tbilisi

Piles of strawberries can be found all over the Deserter’s Bazaar at this time of year. It's a shame that the season is so short – we only have about one month – but we’ll take what we can get, especially since they taste so great.

Pizzeria Rainer’s and Beergarden

Back in the days when we spent more time living without electricity than with, when the police had the sole function of extorting money from citizens, and we were never sure whether the Borjomi mineral water we were buying had been mixed in a bathtub, there weren’t many options for diners desiring a break from the generic Georgian menu of those times. Of course, there were the Turkish steam table restaurants in Plekhanov, but our spoiled western palates periodically demanded more. There was Santa Fe, a Tex-Mex inspired restaurant we can credit for introducing “Caesar Salad” (with mayonnaise!) and “Mexican Potatoes,” spud chunks fried with a generous dusting of paprika, which have somehow become staples on virtually every Georgian menu in the city. Then we discovered a place with flavors our taste buds were no strangers to.

Dukani Racha

We returned to Tbilisi in 2002 with the intention of staying one year. On that first day back, our friends took us to a chummy brick-walled cellar in Sololaki. There was enough sunlight coming down through the door to illume low pine tables and seating for fifty people max. In a refrigerated counter, menu items were displayed: beef tongue, tomato and cucumber salad, assorted cheeses, badrijani (sliced fried eggplant stuffed with a garlicky walnut paste), all the standard stuff. It was a Georgian greasy spoon, for sure, with a kitchen that would make a health inspector shudder, but the khinkali were really good, and the house wine was as decent as it comes. The name of the place was Dukani Racha. Little did we know people had been coming here for decades.

All Hail the Pickle Queen

Nunu Gachecheladze, our “pickle queen” at the Deserter’s Bazaar, pickles everything on site from produce she gets at the bazaar, based on her family recipe. While they’re all outstanding, our favorites are her pickled cucumbers and carrots.