Saperavi

Saperavi is Georgia's principal red grape and one of the few varieties in the world with red flesh as well as red skin. Grapes like this are called teinturier, and the result is a wine of almost opaque, inky colour that keeps its depth for decades. The name means dye in Georgian, which is exactly right.

It has high acidity and firm tannin alongside that colour, and gives blackcurrant, damson, liquorice and a savoury, iron-like note. It is naturally high in alcohol and ages very well. Made in the traditional way, fermented and aged in a buried clay qvevri on its skins and stems, it is more tannic, earthier and more structured than the same fruit in steel.

Kakheti in eastern Georgia is the centre. Saperavi is also planted across the former Soviet republics, in Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and there are small but growing plantings in the Finger Lakes in New York and in Australia, where its cold hardiness is the attraction.