After a 5-month break, Giorgi Natenadze, founder of Meskhetian Winemaking Company “Meskhetian Brand”, resumed exports of wines of “Natenadze’s Wine Cellar” Company. Namely, the company has exported 4,000 bottles of Meskhetian Qvevri Wines to Belgium, Germany, the USA, Italy, and Canada.

“The best thing is that amid the pandemic we have received first orders from Italy. The process started in the initial phase of the COVID outbreak in Italy. Our communication with Italian partners started in that period. Since then, we have been waiting for favorable times for the export of our wines to Italy. Amid the pandemic, we have also entered another new market in Canada.

We will send the test batch of our wines to Canada in several days. Later we will increase volumes, Giorgi Natenadze noted. As for traditional markets, we had orders from these countries, but the pandemic frustrated the restaurant business and brought lockdowns and our orders were postponed, he said. “We sent our wines to Belgium, Germany, and the USA 3 weeks ago. We are also shaping another batch to send it to the USA in November. In practice, our sales grow by annual 30%-40% in this direction. We expected slowdowns this year, but only transportation aspects were belated for a period of 4-5 months. Now we have received two orders from the USA for the 2018-2019 wines”, the Georgian winemaker noted. Part of our export wines is premium wines.

We faced difficulties with sending the 2019 wines because all international exhibitions were postponed amid the pandemic and we could not introduce our wines to the target public, Natenadze said. ‘We have to send several bottles to customers on an individual basis so as they taste them and buy bigger batches if approved. This process takes more expenditures and time, but we manage to hold these “tests” in distance. As a result, the demand for the 2019 wines has increased”, Giorgi Natenadze noted.

CBW