6x Papari Valley – Chinuri Rkatsiteli Qvevri white dry wine

Papari Valley Chinuri-Rkatsiteli Kvevri – 6-bottle case of amber wine from Kakheti

The story of Papari Valley family winery began in 2004, when its founders bought their first two hectares of vineyard on the slopes of the Gombori mountains. Much of the land was covered in old Soviet-era vines planted for maximum yield rather than character, so the family undertook a radical replanting: keeping only the strongest, healthiest vines and replacing the rest with new plantings better suited to the local terroir. A first trial wine was made as early as 2007, but the winery took its time before going to market, finally debuting with a perfectly tuned 2014 vintage. Today Papari Valley farms 9.3 hectares of its own vineyards with vines aged 12 to 25 years, and the wine ferments and ages — skins, seeds and stems included — in clay amphorae buried underground, thanks to a unique gravity-fed three-tier “terrace method” with no mechanisation whatsoever.

• Traditional qvevri method: spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts, skin maceration for several months.
• Gravity terrace method: must and wine flow between three terrace levels by gravity alone, without a single pump.
• Chinuri and Rkatsiteli grapes: vines aged 12–25 years from the Akhasheni area, hand-harvested.

Tasting profile

• Colour: bright golden-orange to light amber.
• Nose: ripe apples and white blossom at first, opening with air into herbs, marzipan and beeswax.
• Palate: bone-dry (2.3 g/l residual sugar), full-bodied, lively acidity, firm tannins, yellow fruit, quince jelly, candied apricot, hazelnut cake and a characteristic grassy, earthy edge.

Serving recommendations

• Serve at 14–16 °C — this isn’t a light summer sipper, but a serious orange wine that calls for bold food.
• Pairs beautifully with traditional Georgian badrijani (walnut-stuffed aubergine), hearty lamb dumplings, Italian bresaola or fried spring rolls.
• Great for a comparative tasting with other Georgian wines.