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M&S Found Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2022 (£11, Ocado.com; Marks & Spencer) At a time of year when many of us are gearing up to prepare a lamb-based feast for Easter, the food and wine culture of Georgia offers a novel way of approaching a meal that is, for most of us, rather less hidebound by family traditions than Christmas dinner. This corner of the Caucasus has a distinctive culinary heritage, in which fresh herbs (tarragon, dill, coriander), nuts (as in the staple walnut paste nigvzis sakmazi used as a base for many dishes), fruit (such as sour plums and dried barbary/berberis berries), spices (fenugreek and the mix of fiery red pepper-based spice mix ajika) and the yoghurt-like fermented milk matsoni all play leading roles. Lamb, too, is widely used, not least in a leading contender for national Georgian dish, chakapuli, in which the meat is stewed with sour plums and herbs, providing layered, intensely vibrant-zingy flavours that go so well with the robust, darkly fruited, succulent reds, such as M&S’s Found bottling, made from one of Georgia’s many outstanding indigenous varieties: saperavi.
Tbilvino Saperavi, Kakheti Georgia 2023 (£13.99, or £11.99 as part of a mixed case of six bottles, majestic.co.uk) Saperavi is an example of a subset of red grape varieties called teinturier that, unlike most of those used for wine, have red flesh as well as skins – an attribute that gives the wines an inky depth of colour with vivid dark juice that calls to mind a punnet of freshly picked blackberries. The wines often have a similar crunchy-black-berried exuberance, with acidity and grip that makes them a fine foil for cutting through the fat of lamb dishes of all kinds, not just those made in a Georgian style. Separavis to try whether your preparation features slow cooking and sweet Moroccan spicing or classic Sunday roasting with garlic and rosemary include Tbilvino’s fragrant example, which reminded me of a youthful southern French syrah with its slick of succulent dark fruit and hint of aniseed, and the seriously classy Orgo Saperavi a wine of gorgeously silky texture, with notes of aniseed, hibiscus and blackberries (the 2022 vintage is £21.50 at nywines.co.uk; the excellent 2023 is in shops soon).
Russell & Suitor ‘Alejandro’ Saperavi, Murray Darling, Australia 2021 (from £14.99, lokiwine.co.uk; davywine.co.uk; hedleywright.co.uk) The Orgo is made by star winemaker Gogi Dakishvili, who ferments and ages the wines in amphora-like clay pots known as qvevri, an ancient (8,000-year-old) Georgian traditional technique that has, in the past couple of decades, become much-imitated by adventurous winemakers all over the world. It is often used to make orange or amber-coloured wines from white grapes, too, with Georgian examples such as Okro’s Wines Zvari Rkatsiteli, Kakheti 2022 (£20.40, botteapostle.com), made from the Georgian white grape variety rkatsiteli balancing intensely, uncompromisingly nutty, dry, and richly umami-filled tones with autumnal fruit (quince) and citrus tang – qualities that also make it work very well with chakapuli. Georgia’s grape varieties, as well as its techniques, are also beginning to show up elsewhere in the world, with Russell & Suitor’s Alejandro bottling using saperavi grown in the hot heart of Australia’s Murray Darling region to make another vividly juicy, herb-and-spice inflected candidate for Easter lamb.
