The Diary of Sanini Wines

During the Covid pandemic, while life had slowed down for so many of us, I discovered something that would completely change my life. My grandparents had left me a small piece of land in their inheritance, a vineyard in the heart of Georgia's wine country. It was tiny by vineyard standards: about one-third of a hectare.

Living in Denmark, I had two fairly simple options. I could sell it; the land was worth roughly what one week's groceries would cost me in Denmark. Or I could find a reason to keep it.

I chose the second option. And that decision started the journey that eventually became Sanini Wines.

A tiny vineyard in the heart of Kakheti

The vineyard sits in the Alazani Valley, in Georgia's Kakheti region, one of the country's most important and historic wine-producing areas. Georgia has an extraordinary winemaking tradition: wine has been made here for thousands of years, and the country is home to hundreds of indigenous grape varieties.

But many of these varieties have disappeared from everyday vineyards. During the Soviet era, wine production became increasingly focused on efficiency and volume. Many grape varieties simply didn't fit the system of mass production. Collective farms concentrated on a small number of varieties, while many others were gradually abandoned. Over time, some became extremely rare. Others disappeared completely from cultivation.

And I started wondering.

Because my vineyard was so small, producing wine commercially in the traditional way didn't make much sense. So instead of asking "What wine can I make here?", I began asking a different question: "What grape belongs here?"

I wanted to find the variety that was native to the Kakheti region, something that had once grown there but was now endangered. My search eventually led me to the Agricultural University of Georgia and the Scientific-Research Center of Agriculture, which holds an incredibly important collection of Georgian grape varieties. Researchers there preserve, grow and study vines that are rare, endangered, or no longer commonly cultivated.

I contacted Professor David (Davit) Chichua, a Georgian expert in oenology, viticulture and winemaking, who heads the Viticulture and Winemaking Research Division at the Center. On 10 November 2022, I went to visit him.

At the Center, researchers and students carefully tend the vines and produce small wine samples for research. Professor Chichua and I spent some time exploring several grape varieties that originated on the well-known Alazani Valley surroundig Telavi, the informal capital of the wine region in Georgia, and then I tasted them.

My requirements had been quite simple: I wanted a red grape, endemic to the region. But I hadn't expected the tasting to become such an emotional experience.

Two varieties immediately caught my attention. The first was Shavi Rkatsiteli, also known as Rkatsiteli Tsiteli. The wine had a beautiful bouquet of red vineyard cherries and plums. But there was another aroma hiding underneath. Something familiar. Something that took me straight back to my childhood; it reminded me of my great-grandmother's house.

The smell of childhood

My great-grandmother lived in the old stone house built in the late 18th century surrounded by big cherry trees. When I smelled that wine, I was suddenly back there. I could almost feel the summer heat. I could remember visiting her from the city, and I could remember the cherries; my brother and I loved climbing those trees, eating as many as we possibly could until, inevitably, our stomachs hurt. This was, of course, long before mobile phones existed.

There was something incredibly powerful about tasting the wine and having it bring back such a specific memory. And I knew: this was my grape. I wanted to bring Shavi Rkatsiteli back to my vineyard, and, in some small way, bring back a piece of my great-grandmother's world with it.

My parents, Marina and Levan, are the ones who tend the vineyard, look after the vines, and do the hard work on the ground, caring for every vine almost as if it were their own child.

After four years of patience, uncertainty, hard work and quite a few moments of wondering whether my crazy idea would actually work, we are finally approaching the moment we've been waiting for. In October 2026, we expect our first vintage, a first harvest that could mark the return of these grapes to this land after more than 100 years. That thought still feels a little unbelievable.

What started with a tiny inherited plot and a choice between selling it or finding a purpose for it has turned into something much bigger than I ever imagined.