It is already the seventh occasion that the Georgian Wine Club proudly hosts the New Wine Festival, with the goals to promote Georgian wine internationally, to increase wine awareness in Georgia and help improve the overall consumption culture.
Agenda:
The theme of a closed wine-tasting event to be held on the opening day of the festival, Friday, May 13, is Qvevri Wines from Outside of Georgia. The event will feature the unique Qvevri wines from France, Japan, Italy, Slovenia, Germany and Austria.
The New Wine Festival will open its doors for visitors on Saturday, May 14 in the Mtatsminda Park. Small/family-owned, medium and large wine cellars from various parts of Georgia will present their wines of 2015 harvest from 11 AM to 6 PM. Visitors are welcome to enjoy some of the nation’s best wines all day long. Attendance for visitors is free of charge.
Partners:
The supporters of the New Wine Festival 2016 are the National Wine Agency and the Tbilisi City Hall. Its media partners include radio stations: Utsnobi, JAKO FM, Tbilisi, Marani (vinoge.com) and Wine Information Center. The event enjoys the partnership with the Mtatsminda Park and the National Parliamentary Library of Georgia.
Participants:
The keen interest of wine companies and family-owned wine cellars was remarkable in the pre-festival phase. The organizers were pleased with the active involvement of newly established small and medium wine companies, who will participate for the first time this year in the capacity of wine companies. Most of them previously participated as family-owned wine cellars.
This year’s New Wine Festival features 77 wine companies, who will present their best wines from the 2015 harvest:
(in alphabetical order)
Along with the wine companies, the New Wine Festival will feature other companies and entrepreneurs:
History and specials:
The family-owned wine cellars presented an unprecedented number of wine specimens this year. In the first stage of festival Georgian Wine Club received more than 350 wines. Following the tasting, the Wine Club Georgia will announce the best of them. The results of the tasting will be available two weeks prior to the event.
The New Wine Festival 2016 will traditionally commence with the Qvevri opening ceremony. The Rezo Kiknadze jazz band, the Nali band and Didgori folklore company will perform their selected musical pieces at the festival. Added to the overall excitement, the lottery will have the barrels full of the best Saperavi wine for winners.
The story of the event’s evolution is exciting: the first wine festival held in 2010 featured 15 wine manufacturers, while the last year’s event had the honor to host small, medium and large wineries, associations and government organizations totaling 105 entities. The venue for this year’s festival was decided upon based on the unprecedented number of eligible participants.
In 2015 the New Wine Festival enjoyed more than 20 000 visitors, many of which were foreign tourists. It was pleasant to observe the large number of young people visiting the festival. Notably, last year’s event covered almost all large wineries along with small wine cellars and wine-growing farmers, whose wines were revealed by Wine Club Georgia following a careful selection process. It is remarkable that, as a consequence of their participation in the wine festival, the majority of those farmers further developed their business by increasing the scale of wine growing. They are now establishing their presence in the market.
Last year, the New Wine Festival was covered in 20 publications of the foreign media, including blog posts, articles and radio talk shows.
© Georgian Wine Club, National Wine Agency, Wine Information Center.