Nikalas Marani Rkatsiteli 2024

Enjoy it now, or cellar for a few years. No need to decant before serving. This is a 100% Rkatsiteli wine, bursting with aromas of apricot, plum skin and green apple, with underlying hints of smoke and flower petals. It is a traditional Georgian amber wine, aged in clay vessels known as qvevri. This time the Rkatsiteli was fermented without the skins, granting the wine a lighter colour: hay yellow with orange hues. Nikalas Marani is one of Georgia’s finest boutique wineries. It can trace its roots back to 1928, when Nikala Mgvdliashvili began to create wine on the right bank of the mighty Alazani River, in the village of Kardenakhi. These days it is run by Nikala’s grandson, Zurab, who restored the old property in 2005 and has turned it into a top-class, modern winery. It is bone dry on the palate, with quivering acidity and light, tea-like tannic quality. The wine’s core shows notes of apple, apricot and raisin, which are orbited by intriguing notes of minerality, spice and peat smoke. It’s an excellent, pure example of one of the country’s most popular native grapes. The Rkatsiteli were harvested from vineyards near the winery, in the esteemed region of Kakheti. Best served at room temperature, with shellfish, poultry, or grilled fish.