Wine

Marina Kurtanidze is the first woman in modern Georgia to make and bottle her own wine. She’s married to Iago Bitarishvili and helps run the family’s winery. Like so many women in Georgia and beyond, she always has. She describes how the situation has recently changed for women in wine. “My husband and I both have other jobs but when it comes to our wine the whole family pitches in. Yet our wine is called ‘Iago’s Wine’. I mentioned that to a woman friend a few years ago who said: ‘all the winemakers’ wives are in the same situation. The men get all the glory. Let’s make our own wine!’ So Tea Melanashvili and I decided to do it together, beginning in 2012. We had to decide what style of wine we wanted as it was clearly not going to be done using our family vineyards.”