Georgian tasters Qeti Japaridze and Kato Shalvashvili participated in the Vienna International Wine Competition, organized by AWC, which is renowned for its rigorous evaluation system and high standards.
This annual event in Vienna is notable for its thorough and demanding judging process.
This year, the competition featured over 10,000 wines from 41 countries. Alongside French, Spanish, Greek, and Czech sommeliers, Georgian tasters also evaluated the wines.
Qeti Japaridze shared her impressions of the competition:
“The Vienna International Wine Challenge is quite professional and, I must say, not very lenient. Unlike other competitions, it focuses exclusively on the wine itself. The wines are categorized by grape varieties, allowing you to taste wines from different producers made from the same variety. This format is a great way to understand the character of a grape variety and makes the wine evaluation more stringent.
I believe our participation there is further recognition of Georgians by Europeans. Georgian winemaking is very interesting to the world today. It is crucial for us to understand their standards and tastes. Such competitions provide us with the information and experience, which we then share with winemakers in Georgia. They can use this knowledge in various marketing and technological aspects."
In Vienna, I was convinced that we have positive changes in Georgia and that Georgian wine can be quite influential and exotic for other countries.”
Kato Shalvashvili added:
“I encountered a very professional format in Vienna. We were all seated in separate booths and tasted 150 samples throughout the day. The categories were divided by grape varieties, which was very interesting as it gave a clear impression of the variety type and its character.
One of the fascinating categories for me was Natural and Orange wines—I tasted samples from almost every corner of the world, and it was interesting to see how similar or different they are compared to our wines.
While in classic wines, it felt like we are in the learning phase of this type of wine, in Orange wines, the opposite is true—they are already in the working phase. Our wines tend to be lighter, with soft tannins and balanced.
I think participating in international competitions is a great way for winemakers to objectively see and understand how their wines are evaluated by unknown judges.”
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