Giorgi Dakishvili: the Master of Schuchmann Seite 1 Von 2

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Issue #606 30.03.12 -05.04.12

Giorgi Dakishvili: the Master of Schuchmann

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Ascend by foot, if you have the legs and wind for it, from the main road between Gurjaani and Telavi up the narrow, reasonably paved lane that wends its way through the hillside village of Kisiskhevi. Climb to the outskirts. Arrive at the home of Schuchmann Wines, ensconced, even inlaid in the rustic village. Discover a gem of a winery, restaurant, and small hotel.

Stand on a lengthy, breezy terrace. A glass of wine in hand will do no harm. Take in the panorama: the dead flat, billiard table flat, pancake flat (flat!) Alazani Plain, at the far extremity of which the Caucasus Mountains seem to have supernaturally and volcanically erupted, like a mushroom cloud, redoubtable and precipitous in their enormity, and to the lower slopes of which a few isolate villages appear to cling for dear life.

Glance to your left, and down. See a small vineyard, just a few feet away, to which Schuchmann’s neighbors may be tending. If at the outskirts, Schuchmann is smack-dab in Kisiskhevi. If to be proximate is to be integral, Schuchmann passes the test.

Fittingly then Winemaker and Managing Director Giorgi Dakishvili is a true native son, born in nearby Telavi with father and grandfather as winemakers. In fact, his father was at the craft in Tsinandali during Soviet era days when the wine made there was known as and deemed to be “No. 1.”

For four years in Odessa and two more in Tbilisi the young student supplemented the enology he had learned at the knee and elbow of his skillful father. In 1996 he became chief winemaker at Teliani Valley, before joining Schuchmann in 2010.

To hear is to believe Dakishvili’s promise that “we are very experienced with our vineyards,”located in Napareuli and Shilda as well as Kisiskhevi. Furthermore, Schuchmann is wholly committed to “sustainable winegrowing,”or as Dakishvili put it, “We are very friendly with nature.”

Nature, however, cannot be trusted to be reciprocally amicable. Every three or four years, in the experience of Dakishvili, hail strikes with all its fury, sometimes ruinously in the run-up to a harvest.

But he has learned to manage the fruits of a troubled vintage by making less wine, and understanding that it will need “more attention and effort.”

Dakishvili also aspires to make wines capable of long life, having tasted, in 1997, a 1960 Saperavi that was “still alive,”if “delicate,”and an Rkatsiteli from 1944 that somehow retained varietal flavor though it was, understandably, “a little bit tired.”So he limits the yield to one and a half kilos of grapes per plant, and allows the Saperavi fruit to have extended contact with the skins of the grapes during maceration.

In Kisiskhevi Dakishvili is the fully equipped Kakhetian winemaker, with a range of qvevris of 500 to 3,300 liters in capacity. His high-tech hardware comes from Italy, Switzerland, Germany, and even Bulgaria and Slovenia, while French hands have shaped the oak barrels at the supereminent cooperage company, Seguin Moreau, whose clients include Margaux, Mouton, Latour, Cheval Blanc, Haut-Brion, d’Yquem, and Bacchus, provided he shows up soon enough to get on the waiting list.

In Kisiskhevi adept Georgian hands are also busy, and Dakishvili tries his at rosйwhich is 80% Merlot, 20% Malbec, for fun a smattering of Isabella (the humble Vitis labrusca grape that somehow came to be known as “Odessa”once it fetched up there), and for seriousness –and celebration –a sparkling wine, especially noteworthy at Schuchmann, which is releasing it for the first time.

The 2008 Schuchmann Blanc de Blancs has true brut champagne character, with body quite full enough as Blanc de Blancs tends to go, and more of it thanbubbles –it is not frothy. The crisp acidity is similarly on target, as is the long toasty finish. This is a sophisticated sparkler.

In still white there are winning alternatives, dry, refreshing, finely balanced and tasty, in what is sometimes called “European-style.”The 2008 Schuchmann Rkatsiteli (11 lari; all prices approximate; prices not noted were unavailable at press time) is mildly citric and peachy, but still on the creamy side, as is the 2007 Schuchmann Tsinandali (11 lari), though more herbal and Sauvignon Blanc-like.

The 2011 Schuchmann Mtsvane, though recently bottled, and despite Dakishvili’s reservations about “bottle shock,”is already showing its stuff, from its bouquet, grapefruity, grassy, and varietally positive – “mtsvane”is the Georgian word for “green,”don’t forget –to a palate that follows suit, even if with more roundness and depth than the aromas forecasted. http://www.georgiatoday.ge/print_version.php?id=10000&version=606 30.03.2012 Georgia Today on the Web-Giorgi Dakishvili: the Master of Schuchmann Seite 2 von 2

Schuchmann also offers a Vinoterra brand, and in the 2009 Vinoterra Rkatsiteli (14 GEL), 2010 Vinoterra Kisi, and 2006 Vinoterra Kisi, Dakishvili shows his Georgian roots. From qvevris have come wines with striking depth of amber color and fullness of flavor.

More redolent of roasted nuts and leather than conventional white wine tree and tropical fruit flavors, the two Kisis may be enigmatic to Western European and New World palates, but they are rich, intriguing, and worthy of close attention, with the 2006 being bigger and more complex, though the 2010 already shows promise and its own share of intensity.

The merits of three Saperavis, however, ought to be more readily and widely recognizable.

The 2009 Vinoterra Saperavi (48 lari) is classy and stylish, while the 2008 Schuchmann Saperavi earned a silver medal at the prestigious Mundus Vini wine competition in Germany. The latter is dashed with 12% Cabernet Sauvignon. It is “an experiment,”Dakishvili wryly noted, but then added, “This blend fits.”Fair enough: the Cabernet has judiciously leveled the edge of the Saperavi’s spiciness, with more fruit character likely to emerge once the smooth tannins retire.

But there is another 2008 Saperavi currently awaiting release (Schuchmann welcomes enquiries on its web site) that is primed to the hilt, having wallowed for 24 months in that luxurious French oak. It has ample structure and concentration for durability, and its palate, showcasing components of blackcurrant and red fruit and just enough jazzy Saperavi pungency to put an exclamation point behind it all, is brimful with flavor.

Yes, the wines are impressive, but truth to tell, Dakishvili is a man with a glass ceiling over his head. No matter how many superb wines he fashions, or how many precious medals they garner, he will never make one that will be labeled “No. 1”by governmental decree. To follow in his father’s footsteps he can only go so far, but still, he and Schuchmann, even if they climb no higher than the heights of Kisiskhevi, must be on the right path.

By Robert Linkous 29.03.2012

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