Gotsa

Beka Gotsadze’s family has been making wine and beer since the 1800’s. The winery and farmhouse is located at 4,000 feet above sea level, in the mountains of Kiketi, Georgia, surrounded by oak forests. 

While most wines or beers made in kvevri are fermented, aged, and then painstakingly scooped out with ladles made from gourds, Beka has instead drilled holes in the bottom of the fermentation kvevri, connecting them to the lower kvevri used for aging, allowing for gravity flow. Before the kvevri are even buried, he wraps them in silicon tubing attached to a cold water spring which helps to cool down the fermentation temperatures. As to not let the water go to waste, it’s then pumped into an indoor swimming pool he built for his family. Then once the temperatures drop in winter, the warm pool water is reversed back through the tubes to warm the fermentations, encouraging malolactic fermentation in wines. 

Everything used in production comes from the property - the barley, hops, grapes, spring water, and yeast. They sun-malt the barley for this beer slowly and boil it over a wood fire. It's then added to kvevri along with lees (dead wine yeast) and grapes for fermentation. A small amount of grape juice is added at bottling for bottle conditioning and nothing else.

The Gotsa Qvrimi Grape Ale is slightly sour and deeply expressive. It shows apricot, peach, ripe pineapple rind, quince, and dried hay, finishing with a smoky, campfire note. This is a really wild and intriguing one for beer lovers with an appreciation for wine and something unique!