New Wine Festival 2017
New Wine Festival was hosted by park Mtatsminda on May,13. The event was organized by Wine Club of Georgia and assisted by National Wine Agency of Ministry of Agriculture, Tbilisi City Hall and Georgian National Tourism Administration. Small-family and medium enterprises, major producers and famous companies took part in the festival and introduced their wines of harvest 2016 to the guests.
“New Wine Festival” was opened by the Head of Wine Club, Malkhaz Kharbedia and Head of National Wine Agency of Ministry if Agriculture, Giorgi Samanishvili. The event was attended by the Deputy Ministers of Agriculture of Georgia Giorgi Khanishvili, Revaz Asatiani and Iuri Nozadze, Chairman of the Agrarian Issues Committee of Parliament of Georgia, Otar Danelia, Mayor of Tbilisi City, Davit Narmania and representatives of international organizations and sectoral associations.
As the Head of National Wine Agency stated, the festival is mainly aimed to popularization of Georgian wine, promotion of small-family and medium production and development of wine consumption culture in Georgia.
“It\'s remarkable, that the number of participants of New Wine Festival increases annually, as well as the number of visitors and foreigner tourists. This is the 8th year of New Wine Festival celebration. In the first festival organized in 2010, only 15 companies were taking part and this year, over 110 participants introduced their production. Also, the number of the guests this year was over ten thousand. This demonstrated the importance, popularity and prestigiousness of the festival” - stated Giorgi Samanishvili.
On this years\'s New Wine Festival, minor wine cellars, small-family and medium enterprises and almost all major producers introduced their production. The wines represented at the festival were selected by Wine Club of Georgia in the regions.
The Scientific-Research Center of the Ministry of Agriculture was represented with it\'s own stand at the festival, where wines made of unique and rare varieties of Georgian grapes from test-demonstration base of Jigaura Scientific-Research Center were introduced. The students of wine-making and viticulture faculty of Agrarian University introduced their own-made wines.
Traditionally, with other performances, Qvevri was solemnly opened and gift barrels of Saperavi were drawn. With National Wine Agency and Georgian National Tourism Administration organization, media-tour was held, in which, wine professionals and wine tourism interested journalists (USA, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Spain and UK) took part.