Iago, Chinuri Amber, 2023

Amber wine from the man who helped revive Georgia's ancient qvevri tradition. Iago Bitarishvili works with a single indigenous grape, Chinuri, on his small estate in Chardakhi in the Kartli region, and in 2005 became the first certified-organic vineyard in the country. This is the skin-contact version: the grapes ferment and age for roughly six months on their skins in qvevri, the egg-shaped clay vessels buried underground, which gives the wine its amber color and a gently tannic, tea-like grip. Production is tiny, capped by the cellar at around 10,000 bottles a year. It's living wine history in a glass, and a delicious entry point to one of the world's oldest winemaking cultures.