VERSANT

Ghost
of the
Vine
In Georgia, science probes the
roots of winemaking
by Paul Salopek
Meet Maka Kozhara: a wine expert. Young, intelligent, friendly.
Kozhara sits in an immense cellar in a muddy green valley in the
Republic of Georgia. The cellar lies beneath an imitation French
château. The vineyards outside, planted in gnarled rows, stretch away for
miles. Once, in the late 19th century, the château’s owner, a Francophile,
a vintner and eccentric Georgian aristocrat, pumped barrels of homebrewed
champagne through a large outdoor fountain: a golden spray
of drinkable bubbles shot into the air.
“It was for a party,” Kozhara says. “He loved wine.”