K’AVSHIRI is the result of a five-year project between multi-award-winning former critic and author, Robert Joseph (Sunday Telegraph, Wine International, Bordeaux & its Wines, French Wines, Wines of the Americas, the Good Wine Guide etc) and Vladimer Kublashvili of Winery Khareba, one of Georgia’s most gifted young winemakers.
After giving up wine criticism and his role as chair of the International Wine Challenge in 2005 following the birth of his son, he launched an innovative French brand called le Grand Noir which has been served by the glass at Gordon Ramsay’s Savoy Grill and is sold in 65 countries across the world.
He also began consulting for a number of countries and companies, including Australia and Georgia. Robert first visited Georgia in 1988 and has made multiple trips back over the years. In 2018 he and Kublashvili, whose wines and winemaking he’d admired, began discussing the creation of an innovative blend together. Blends of grapes are unusual in Georgia, as are blends across regions and between winemaking techniques. The two men decided to do all three.
K’AVSHRI – which means ‘union’ or ‘coming together’ – has 17 components from 10 different grape varieties grown in vineyards in Kakheti and Imereti. Ten percent of the wine was fermented in qvevri with some of the same varieties also being fermented in stainless steel and second-year oak, which made up another 10% of the blend. Several experimental blends were produced – including during the pandemic- before Robert and Vladimer were satisfied.
Robert returned from Georgia, where he was working on the next release and the similarly innovative red, barrel-samples of which he has brought back with him. He has also carried back some rare Aladasturi that is not available in the UK and is a component in the red K’AVSHIRI as well as examples of 2023 Mtsvani that is still fermenting in qvevri and I stainless steel.
Only 996 bottles of K’AVSHRI white Assemblage 2022 are being released. This is the first time it has been presented in public. Almost no one outside the winery has seen the red.
