AKOG Natural Orange Wine
We proudly present a special collaboration between the artisanal Georgian winemaker Zura Shakarashvili and A Kind of Guise. Having placed a big emphasis on Georgia’s food and wine culture as a core inspiration of AW21, we teamed up to create a 200 piece limited edition of an exceptional orange wine that is crafted from the ancient, local grape Mtsvane Kakhuri. This dry and organic wine is full of delicate yellow fruit aromas like yellow apple and apricot, paired with crisp, floral-tinged flavours. Finding this one hasn’t been easy and involved many seemingly eternal nights of various wine tastings and blurred memories, but once we came across Zura’s creations and after this particular one has undergone our rigorous and extensive testing, we knew we had found our match.
Zura runs a small namesake wine cellar in Kakheti, one of the oldest wine regions in the world. He produces white, red and orange wine, combining ancient technologies with innovative methods, experimenting without losing basic principles and values. Zura is growing his family-run business incrementally, having produced around 8000 bottles this year, sharing our approach to always put quality before quantity without compromise.
Georgia is considered the birthplace of wine and natural wines glowing honey, orange and amber tones have been made the same way for over 8000 years. Traditionally, large clay vessels, named Qvevri, are buried into the ground to stabilise temperatures and used for the skin-fermentation process instead of steel or wooden barrels. Despite representing a unique craft, it can be said that orange or amber wines are simply white wines skin-fermented like reds.
Rewinding to the start of our journey, we knew that wine plays an important role in Georgian table culture, but after having experienced how much love and ritual goes into not only drinking and toasting at each „Supra“, but also to the cultivation of grapes and the fermentation of wine itself, has left a big impact on us. What it comes down to in the end is the significance that wine represents in Georgian culture: the feeling of togetherness, friendship, love, and hospitality. Inspired by these values, we created the label of this bottle together with the talented illustrator Serafine Frey, whose typical illustrations always embody these characteristics..
Long story short, is an exciting wine for orange wine connoisseurs as well as first-timers, we highly recommend to try and enjoy – moderate and responsibly, of course.
