{"id":10458,"date":"2022-04-01T12:05:22","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T19:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=10458"},"modified":"2022-05-20T02:58:21","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T09:58:21","slug":"photos-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2022\/04\/01\/photos-georgia\/","title":{"rendered":"Photos: Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 41\u00b055’33″N 45\u00b029’08″E<\/a><\/h6>\n

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Cat pee. That’s what Simcoe hops taste like, cat pee. Their powerful, unmistakable flavour is typically added at the end of fermentation to give an IPA an added ‘oomph’. Sipping the first true craft beers we’d had since leaving America last September, the barman and brewer leaned forward and said, ‘You know, if you leave a review, you can have a free shot.’ \u2018A free shot of what?\u2019 we asked. \u2018Jaeger, vodka, or a local specialty that I make.\u2019 \u2018Give us that, the last one!\u2019 we said as we dived for our phones.<\/p>\n

\u2018Where are you from?\u2019 the gentleman to my right enquired. The shot of homemade fruit-infused grappa loosened our tongues and we gave him the full three-minute precis of Aleta, sailing and horsing around Turkey and Georgia in a rented car for five months. \u2018This is your first time to Georgia? What are your plans? Are you going to Telavi?\u2019 Giving him a tourist\u2019s open mouthed, adenoidal stare of incomprehension, he pulled out his phone, fired up Google maps, and proceeded to tell us the highlights of a three-day excursion to the north. We thanked him as he warned us to keep an eye out for saboteurs.<\/p>\n

Had we arrived two weeks later in a Toyota Land Cruiser with fat knobby tires and a well-stocked gun rack, the hinterlands might have been at our disposal. But snow fell heavily and smothered our ambitions. Given the conditions, and respecting the advice of everyone we spoke with, we hired a driver to take us out of Tbilisi and into the countryside.<\/p>\n

TELAVI<\/a><\/h6>\n

The heart of wine country. Georgians will tell you they\u2019ve been making wine for 8,000 years. That they invented it. I can\u2019t say if that\u2019s true or not, but the vast acres of vines lay testimony to their seriousness about it. To this day, they ferment wine naturally in huge clay amphoras buried in the ground to maintain a constant temperature.<\/p>\n

The new wine is decanted and shipped to bottlers who complete the fermentation and blending process, package it and ship it all over the world. Fifteen bucks gets you some fantastic vintage wines. Two bucks in a restaurant buys you a litre of drinkable vino de tavola. Given its provenance, the bulk wine from Saperavi<\/a> grapes hover around 12% alcohol and generally won\u2019t knock you on your butt too hard. Seeing as its free of sulphites, your head stays a little clearer, too.<\/p>\n

Monasteries in the area near Telavi also get in on the winemaking game. One such we visited had entered a joint venture with a big European vintner. They fund church renovations, while the monks grow grapes and incant hymns. Seems like an arrangement the big guy upstairs would approve of.<\/p>\n

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