This summer I bought a small piece of land (0.15ha) in the village of Okhureshi to grow a vineyard. About 700 “Usakhelauri” vine seedlings planted on that land in November this year will soon provide the most scarce and expensive grapes in Georgia. In just in a couple of years the vines will mature, and I will enjoy something as nice as the neighboring vineyard depicted in the photo.

For several consecutive years, we have been observing a seasonal spike in Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) coinciding in time with young wine festivals (rtveli) and post-harvest euphoria in rural Georgia. Not this year. In September 2017, CCI lost 2.6 points, going down from -16.4 to -19. Both CCI components, the present situation, and expectations indices declined, by 3.4 and 1.9 points, respectively.

Telavi, the former capital of the Kingdom of Kakheti, is a beautiful town with spectacular views of the Alazani Valley and Caucasian mountains. In the 18th century, King Erekle II reigned from Telavi. The palace can still be seen, and the statue of King Erekle stands proudly in the middle of the city's town square. More importantly for the city dwellers, Telavi is the capital of Georgia’s traditional winemaking.

On May 27, 2017, German and Swiss students and professionals from The Mercator Fellowship, together with ISET researchers, visited Kakheti for a wine tour.

Marriage is a phenomenon strongly intertwined within our culture and everyday life. It is almost a “must do” thing in Georgian traditional society, and it has to be approved either by religious authority or by the state, or both. A recent study about Georgian youth entitled “Generation in Transition, Youth Study Georgia – 2016” by Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, shows the 14-29 age cohort’s perceptions, awareness, and approaches towards marriage.