Following the truly outstanding 2016 (this winery’s virgin bottling), this new vintage really holds its own. The 33% percent of the incredibly rare Chitishvala seems to add a real lift, and a certain herbal pungency. There’s also loads of baked apple, papaya and sharon fruit, with a typically earthy, dense and thrilling structure.
It’ll be fascinating to taste Chitishvala as a mono-varietal in the future (right now Casreli doesn’t have enough vines to achieve this, but they are expanding the plot), but for now this blend is wonderful stuff – clean and focused winemaking that stays absolutely bang-on true to Georgia’s ancestral winemaking tradition.
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