Wine

“As a child I wasn’t given a choice: I had to become a musician,” says Kakha Berishvili. “My parents and grandparents – not my teachers – helped me select which instrument I’d master. It was the violin but I never really loved it.” Kakha was born into a family of musicians. Both parents were conductors. In Soviet times his mother worked at the Young Pioneer Palace for élite youths in Tbilisi. Kakha started playing aged six, studied at Tbilisi’s Conservatoire, joined a TV orchestra and performed solos in Tbilisi concert halls during the Soviet period. He taught violin in Sighnaghi for several years. At 26 he decided to give up playing professionally, much to his parents’ chagrin. “They had another vision for my life and wanted to send me to Russia to perfect my craft but I refused,” he says.