Drinking the sun: 526 good reasons why Georgia is the wine region you need to discover now

John announces the dishes as they arrive. There is minced veal in fermented grape leaves, chicken in an egg sauce, speckled trout from the Tushetian mountains and wild oyster mushroom with tarragon and green plum. We can barely finish what’s on our plate before it’s replaced with a clean one. New dishes keep on coming, piling up in the middle of the table: pork shashklik and sweetbreads, then aubergines folded around a mixture of walnut, blue fenugreek, marigold flowers, coriander seed and garlic. I thought I knew Georgian cuisine from going to Georgian restaurants in Russia — but that’s a bit like saying you know Italian food from dining at Bella Pasta. The variety and subtlety on offer is staggering — not to mention the quantity.

When it comes to wine, Georgia has the greatest biodiversity per hectare in the world, with an astonishing 526 grape varieties (Italy has twice as many varieties but is four times larger). Georgian wine was traditionally a family affair, made in small quantities and consumed locally in the villages. But the Soviet era land brought collectivisation and industrialisation. Only four types of wine were made during this period, much of it for export around the USSR. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, Georgia at first tried to integrate itself with the global wine market by buying foreign equipment and making ersatz versions of popular wines such as Burgundy and Bordeaux — a “good but not winning” formula, says Wurdeman.

For centuries, says Gachechiladze, Georgian cuisine absorbed the influences of Mongol, Persian and Ottoman invasions, the Silk Road and later, 19th century European tastes. “Eggplants” she says of the staple Georgian ingredient, “were from India. We planted them and adapted them because we have great soil.” But after centuries of enrichment and variation, Georgian food was homogenised during the USSR in a similar way to its wine. “Georgian housewives lost touch with their cuisine,” says Gachechiladze. And although the recipes survived, the stultifying effects of the Soviet period seem to have been far-reaching. “The Georgians think that if their grandmother and grandmother’s grandmother did it like this then this is the tradition and you can’t change it. But you can always improve something.” Gachechiladze illustrates her point by describing her twist on traditional chakapuli (lamb and vegetable stew), which involves cooking the meat with a bouquet garni and then replacing it with fresh greens. “You can’t cook greens and meat for three hours together!” she protests.

Whether planting new varieties of aubergines brought over from Italy or working with farmers to grow artichokes in Georgia for the first time, Gachechiladze has been busy reviving what she sees as her country’s tradition of innovation. But it’s clear that her priorities lie in finding the best ingredients and techniques rather than simply coming up with innovative combinations for their own sake. She is also rediscovering forgotten ingredients that grow wild in Georgia, such as danduri, a kind of weed that goes by the name of perslane in English. “I travel a lot — I eat in the villages,” she says. “People bring me things.”

And then suddenly it’s our turn. “I’ve just bought a kilo of Georgian truffles!”, Tekuna exclaims with an infectious laugh. “They’re not as aromatic as Piedmontese truffles, but they’re truffles, and we never knew we had them!” She skips off inside and returns moments later with small black truffles for everyone. I find mine back in London while unpacking, wrapped in a handkerchief — an earthy souvenir of Georgia’s boundless richness and fertility.