With National Wine Agency invitation, Japanese master of wine Kenichi Ohashi visited Georgia for Georgia wine market investigation reason for a week. Japanese wine professional is accompanied by the representative of Japanese Sommelier Association journal (JSA), wine writer Akihiko Yamamoto, who is preparing a long article about Georgian wine to publish in JSA in 2018.
Kenichi Ohashi is the only vine master in Japan and his visit aims to learn Georgian wine and offer it to Japanese consumers. On the first day of his visit in Georgia, Japanese guests held a meeting in National Wine Agency, saw the museum and enotheca of the Agency and visited wine company “Chateau Mukhrani”. The visit continued in Kakheti and totally, the guests had opportunity to tgiaste over 100 different varieties of Georgian wine.
Georgian wine made a special impression on Kenichi Ohashi.
“My impression of Georgian wine is absolutely fantastic, I am very ashamed, because I was not familiar to Georgian wine, it’s my shame. Once I went here, there is so many new information, number one is the history over 8 thousand years, absolutely, Georgia is an ancestor of wine and wine-making and we should respect this nation – Georgia. The second one is the variety. Such new knowledge, we should learn much more, Japanese retailers and sellers want to study much more and here is a lot of knowledge, this knowledge is very ancient and historical and for us it’s a completely new knowledge, I appreciate to be here. I think that Georgian wine has a brilliant future, because our cuisine is one of the Unesco Heritage but the Qvevri winemaking is also the World Heritage, and the combination of these is a double World Heritage, it’s such a beautiful thing, if we start enjoying Georgian wines much more than ever, the most of Georgian wines showed us austerity on the palette, we prefer such a kind of sensory perception rather than the fruits driven style. Georgian wines’ style is absolutely acceptable and very suitable for our cuisine and I think, Georgian wine future on our market is absolutely brilliant” – stated Kenichi Ohashi.
Japanese guests had opportunity to taste wines of the following companies: “Giuaani”, “Kakhetian Traditional Winemaking”, “Shumi”, “Telavi Wine Cellar”, “Teleda”, “Schuchmann Wines Georgia”, “Vaziani Company”, “Shalauri Wine Cellar”, “Maranuli”, “Kakha Tchotiashvili Winery”, “Winery Khareba”, also, visited Qvevri-maker – Zaza Kbilashvili and learnt the Qvevri-making technology. They tasted “Gotsa Wines” in Kartli.
As the head of Marketing and PR Department of National Wine Agency, Irakli Cholobargia mentioned, Kenichi Ohashi represents the Agency contractor marketing company “Red Bridge”, which organizes marketing and advertising campaign of Georgian wine in Japan this year.
