Pheasant's Tears, Gaumarjos!
I’m sat on a rickety old terrace hanging off the side of a cliff in Signaghi in the middle of nowhere in the Georgian region of Kakheti. When I look down, I see thick, lush and healthy trees flowing down into the valley, the trees give way to vast planes leading all the way up to the Caucasus Mountain in the far distance. If one were to trek over those mountains, one would end up in Russia. When I look up, the sky is deep blue and the sun is bright and warm, wispy white clouds float about and the birds are chirping. Cheap Georgian Lager in hand, I’m truly happy. Any day, this would be the highlight, but today, it is merely the beginning of something far more exciting, a visit to Georgia’s best known winery, Pheasant’s Tears. And what a treat it’s about to be!
I travelled to Georgia in March this year. I wanted to visit, as it was a country I knew woefully little about at the time, but whenever I did catch a snippet of information or news, not to mention a sip of wine, my interest was always piqued. The mission was to learn about Georgia. Having now been, I can report back that it is a fantastic country and I cannot wait to return. Many wineries were visited, much more booze was had, plenty of food consumed with endless fun with excellent people. I will first write about Georgia’s most famous wine producer, and the first Georgian wine I’d ever tried: Pheasant’s Tears. Wondering about the name? I can explain: You know when you give wine to pheasants and the wine is just so damned delicious that the pheasant can only cry. That’s the moment the winery is named after. It’s actually an old Georgian proverb “Only a wine beyond measure could make pheasant cry tears of joy”
John Wurdeman reckons he was beckoned, nay, summoned to Georgia by a traditional polyphonic chanting CD he found in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia when looking for Minor Threat records. Many years later, John met the artists from the CD who told him only 300 copies has been released all of which had sold in Berlin, meaning somebody had bought the CD and travelled to Virginia with it, before selling their copy to an exchange where John stumbled upon the peripatetic record and fell in love with the music… that’s fate, mate!
John Wurdeman is an American painter who started Pheasant’s Tears in 2007 with a mate he made in Georgie, Gela Patalishvili. Gela comes from a family of wine makers. In 2005, he spotted John painting in a vineyard and approached him to invite him to dinner; the two got along famously and started a winery together. They have gone from strength to strength ever since exporting wine across the globe and opening the eponymous world famous restaurant in John’s now hometown of Signaghi, as well as the much-lauded Poliphonia in Tbilisi. Since my visit, they have also opened a third restaurant on location at the winery itself called Crazy Pomegranate.
Upon our arrival in Georgia, John emailed to say he would unfortunately be in Tbilisi on the day of our winery visit, but we should just head to the restaurant, and someone there would show us about. Enter Gia Rokashvili, head chef and all round excellent chap. Gia was clearly not expecting us and had a busy service to get through but with the incredible hospitality we found to be common amongst all Georgians, he bundled us into his battered Fiat and off we went! During the short drive to the winery, Gia explained that his excellent English had pretty much all been learnt from Beatles songs! A quick tour ensued; we saw the traditional qvevri, some vineyards and the nearly ready Crazy Pomegranate, the terrace of which looks out over the wineries vast fields planted with around 400 indigenous grape varieties. We also saw a load of grape must being prepped to distil into Georgia’s deliciously lethal answer to grappa, chacha. Gia quickly ushered us back to the car because he had to head back to the restaurant but as we got to the main road, instead of turning right onto the road back to the restaurant he mischievously turned the wheels left and said “let’s explore.” He drove us to a natural water source to fill our bottles then took us to a number of roadside stalls selling all manner of herbs and vegetables to stock up for evening service. Radishes, tarragon, walnuts, nettles, coriander, parsley… he filled little plastic bags with handfuls of incredible smelling plants before suddenly remembering we had booked a table for that very evening. “Don’t order anything, I’ll just cook for you.” If Minor Threat and polyphonic singing enchant John Wurdeman, a professional chef saying he’ll cook especially for me is the sweetest music I can hear!
Qvevri are the standard in Georgia, forget your oak barrels, your stainless steel vats, even forget your concrete eggs. Wine is made in qvevri; clay amphorae lined with bees wax and buried underground. These are used for fermentation, maceration, ageing and everything in between and this has been the case for over 8,000 years. In most places (including Pheasant’s Tears) fermentation is done spontaneously with natural yeasts and skin contact can vary but is usually relatively long producing tannic and rich red wines and big elegant amber wines. Georgia is home to about 500 indigenous grape varieties all as exciting as each other but two stand out as the most common. Saperavi is a huge and powerful red grape that makes big inky and tannic wines. It is an ancient and rather rare type of grape in that its pulp is actually red as well as its skin. Saperavi actually means ‘to dye’ or ‘to tint’ which the wine definitely does to your teeth! The other famous grape is Rkatsiteli, a white number that has succeeded in enchanting me a little bit more with every bottle I’ve opened since. Rkatsiteli can be very versatile depending on the amount of skin contact it undergoes. Short contact will produce very fresh and elegant white wine whereas prolonged contact will make deep brooding and wonderfully elegant amber wines, these are the ones you want.
Back at the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant, we were shown a table and told to wait. We ordered a bottle of Chinuri, a lovely amber wine and a bottle of the brand new vintage of Saperavi that may or may not have quite been ready yet, let’s call it an en primeur sample. It wasn’t long before dish after dish of outstanding food started materialising. Beef stew, grilled aubergines with walnuts, pork belly, omelette made with those nettles from earlier, spring onion salad, tomatoes salad, coriander paste, local cheeses, grilled mushrooms… the list goes on, I was in a beautiful bubble of bliss. Gia made us feel like kings, and the experience remains fondly in my mind to this day. That afternoon was one of many peaks in the leitmotif of incredibly generous hospitality that ran through our entire week in Georgia, a beautiful country full of beautiful people.
To victory, gaumarjos!
I travelled to Georgia in March this year. I wanted to visit, as it was a country I knew woefully little about at the time, but whenever I did catch a snippet of information or news, not to mention a sip of wine, my interest was always piqued. The mission was to learn about Georgia. Having now been, I can report back that it is a fantastic country and I cannot wait to return. Many wineries were visited, much more booze was had, plenty of food consumed with endless fun with excellent people. I will first write about Georgia’s most famous wine producer, and the first Georgian wine I’d ever tried: Pheasant’s Tears. Wondering about the name? I can explain: You know when you give wine to pheasants and the wine is just so damned delicious that the pheasant can only cry. That’s the moment the winery is named after. It’s actually an old Georgian proverb “Only a wine beyond measure could make pheasant cry tears of joy”
John Wurdeman reckons he was beckoned, nay, summoned to Georgia by a traditional polyphonic chanting CD he found in his hometown of Richmond, Virginia when looking for Minor Threat records. Many years later, John met the artists from the CD who told him only 300 copies has been released all of which had sold in Berlin, meaning somebody had bought the CD and travelled to Virginia with it, before selling their copy to an exchange where John stumbled upon the peripatetic record and fell in love with the music… that’s fate, mate!
John Wurdeman is an American painter who started Pheasant’s Tears in 2007 with a mate he made in Georgie, Gela Patalishvili. Gela comes from a family of wine makers. In 2005, he spotted John painting in a vineyard and approached him to invite him to dinner; the two got along famously and started a winery together. They have gone from strength to strength ever since exporting wine across the globe and opening the eponymous world famous restaurant in John’s now hometown of Signaghi, as well as the much-lauded Poliphonia in Tbilisi. Since my visit, they have also opened a third restaurant on location at the winery itself called Crazy Pomegranate.
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| One of Pheasant's Tears many vineyards with a exhumed qvevri. |
Upon our arrival in Georgia, John emailed to say he would unfortunately be in Tbilisi on the day of our winery visit, but we should just head to the restaurant, and someone there would show us about. Enter Gia Rokashvili, head chef and all round excellent chap. Gia was clearly not expecting us and had a busy service to get through but with the incredible hospitality we found to be common amongst all Georgians, he bundled us into his battered Fiat and off we went! During the short drive to the winery, Gia explained that his excellent English had pretty much all been learnt from Beatles songs! A quick tour ensued; we saw the traditional qvevri, some vineyards and the nearly ready Crazy Pomegranate, the terrace of which looks out over the wineries vast fields planted with around 400 indigenous grape varieties. We also saw a load of grape must being prepped to distil into Georgia’s deliciously lethal answer to grappa, chacha. Gia quickly ushered us back to the car because he had to head back to the restaurant but as we got to the main road, instead of turning right onto the road back to the restaurant he mischievously turned the wheels left and said “let’s explore.” He drove us to a natural water source to fill our bottles then took us to a number of roadside stalls selling all manner of herbs and vegetables to stock up for evening service. Radishes, tarragon, walnuts, nettles, coriander, parsley… he filled little plastic bags with handfuls of incredible smelling plants before suddenly remembering we had booked a table for that very evening. “Don’t order anything, I’ll just cook for you.” If Minor Threat and polyphonic singing enchant John Wurdeman, a professional chef saying he’ll cook especially for me is the sweetest music I can hear!
 |
| Pheasant's Tears huge qvevri buries underground |
Qvevri are the standard in Georgia, forget your oak barrels, your stainless steel vats, even forget your concrete eggs. Wine is made in qvevri; clay amphorae lined with bees wax and buried underground. These are used for fermentation, maceration, ageing and everything in between and this has been the case for over 8,000 years. In most places (including Pheasant’s Tears) fermentation is done spontaneously with natural yeasts and skin contact can vary but is usually relatively long producing tannic and rich red wines and big elegant amber wines. Georgia is home to about 500 indigenous grape varieties all as exciting as each other but two stand out as the most common. Saperavi is a huge and powerful red grape that makes big inky and tannic wines. It is an ancient and rather rare type of grape in that its pulp is actually red as well as its skin. Saperavi actually means ‘to dye’ or ‘to tint’ which the wine definitely does to your teeth! The other famous grape is Rkatsiteli, a white number that has succeeded in enchanting me a little bit more with every bottle I’ve opened since. Rkatsiteli can be very versatile depending on the amount of skin contact it undergoes. Short contact will produce very fresh and elegant white wine whereas prolonged contact will make deep brooding and wonderfully elegant amber wines, these are the ones you want.
Back at the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant, we were shown a table and told to wait. We ordered a bottle of Chinuri, a lovely amber wine and a bottle of the brand new vintage of Saperavi that may or may not have quite been ready yet, let’s call it an en primeur sample. It wasn’t long before dish after dish of outstanding food started materialising. Beef stew, grilled aubergines with walnuts, pork belly, omelette made with those nettles from earlier, spring onion salad, tomatoes salad, coriander paste, local cheeses, grilled mushrooms… the list goes on, I was in a beautiful bubble of bliss. Gia made us feel like kings, and the experience remains fondly in my mind to this day. That afternoon was one of many peaks in the leitmotif of incredibly generous hospitality that ran through our entire week in Georgia, a beautiful country full of beautiful people.
To victory, gaumarjos!
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