From the village of Nakhshirgele. Grown on flint-chalk soils, co-planted with other crops. In the glass, very hazy, mild lemon. A complex, mineral-driven nose with fennel, lemon curd, and flint and chalk. The steely, taut palate echoes with vitality and crisp freshness. Along with a dash of white pepper and menthol tingling, the lemon character maintains the center line throughout. Its drive and focus are very unique and excellent.
Grapes: 50% Tsitska, 50% Tsolikouri
Vineyard: Clay soil, 10-50 year old vines. Organically farmed.
Making of (2024): Grapes are hand-harvested and directly pressed to kvevri, where they co-ferment together without any maceration. Aged in kvevri together for 5 months, then racked to stainless for another 5 months before bottling.
Winemaker/Winery information:
You’d be forgiven for mistaking Ramaz Nikoladze’s lush, wild stretch of a vineyard for an unkempt garden. Here, in the village of Nakhshirgele — in Western Georgia’s Imereti region, caught between Tbilisi and the Black Sea — the grass grows waist-high, shading the grapes from the piercing sun during the day. The nights are cool and humid, and the clay soil requires very little water, creating idyllic conditions for autochthonous grapes like Tsolikouri and Tsitska to flourish.
Nikoladze, born into a winemaking family, grew up between the cellar and the vines. Like his father before him, he works the land without herbicides or chemical additives. He began making his own wine in earnest in 2007, first in his family’s historic cellar and later building his own mariani, or winery, where traditional kvevris are buried into the earth.
He soon attracted international attention for his unique winemaking style, which incorporates extended maceration — a technique favored in Eastern Georgia’s Kakheti region, which is far from traditional in Imereti. That style of tannic, tea-like “amber wine,” so closely tied with most foreigner’s conceptions of Georgian wine, is the inverse of the style in Imereti, which sees far less skin contact.
“I liked skin contact wines and decided to see what would happen if I tried to make one,” Nikoladze tells us of how he pioneered the technique in his region, adding that his father and colleagues cautioned him against the idea at first. “I talked with my friends and fellow winemakers from the Kakheti region about how to do it, and in 2011 I made my first skin-contact vintage. Since then, I’ve always done it this way.”
Rather than go for whole-cluster maceration, Nikoladze favors a more fresh and gentle approach, separating the juice from the mash and stems and later adding a small percentage of them back in during fermentation — anywhere from five to twenty percent.
Nearly all of his wines ferment in below-ground kvevris for four to six months. Those without skins he hardly touches; for the macerations, he’s quite attentive to the cap, stirring it regularly by hand to keep it from drying out. The wines are typically racked to stainless steel tanks, where they rest for another four to five months before bottling. In order to best preserve the energy and character of the land, the wines are unfined, unfiltered, and see little-to-no additional sulphur.
We’re delighted to welcome Ramaz Nikoladze’s wines to our growing portfolio of natural winemakers in Georgia, which boasts a rich 8,000-year history of winemaking.
Grapes: 50% Tsitska, 50% Tsolikouri
Vineyard: Clay soil, 10-50 year old vines. Organically farmed.
Making of (2024): Grapes are hand-harvested and directly pressed to kvevri, where they co-ferment together without any maceration. Aged in kvevri together for 5 months, then racked to stainless for another 5 months before bottling.
Winemaker/Winery information:
You’d be forgiven for mistaking Ramaz Nikoladze’s lush, wild stretch of a vineyard for an unkempt garden. Here, in the village of Nakhshirgele — in Western Georgia’s Imereti region, caught between Tbilisi and the Black Sea — the grass grows waist-high, shading the grapes from the piercing sun during the day. The nights are cool and humid, and the clay soil requires very little water, creating idyllic conditions for autochthonous grapes like Tsolikouri and Tsitska to flourish.
Nikoladze, born into a winemaking family, grew up between the cellar and the vines. Like his father before him, he works the land without herbicides or chemical additives. He began making his own wine in earnest in 2007, first in his family’s historic cellar and later building his own mariani, or winery, where traditional kvevris are buried into the earth.
He soon attracted international attention for his unique winemaking style, which incorporates extended maceration — a technique favored in Eastern Georgia’s Kakheti region, which is far from traditional in Imereti. That style of tannic, tea-like “amber wine,” so closely tied with most foreigner’s conceptions of Georgian wine, is the inverse of the style in Imereti, which sees far less skin contact.
“I liked skin contact wines and decided to see what would happen if I tried to make one,” Nikoladze tells us of how he pioneered the technique in his region, adding that his father and colleagues cautioned him against the idea at first. “I talked with my friends and fellow winemakers from the Kakheti region about how to do it, and in 2011 I made my first skin-contact vintage. Since then, I’ve always done it this way.”
Rather than go for whole-cluster maceration, Nikoladze favors a more fresh and gentle approach, separating the juice from the mash and stems and later adding a small percentage of them back in during fermentation — anywhere from five to twenty percent.
Nearly all of his wines ferment in below-ground kvevris for four to six months. Those without skins he hardly touches; for the macerations, he’s quite attentive to the cap, stirring it regularly by hand to keep it from drying out. The wines are typically racked to stainless steel tanks, where they rest for another four to five months before bottling. In order to best preserve the energy and character of the land, the wines are unfined, unfiltered, and see little-to-no additional sulphur.
We’re delighted to welcome Ramaz Nikoladze’s wines to our growing portfolio of natural winemakers in Georgia, which boasts a rich 8,000-year history of winemaking.
