Postcard From The Largest Regenerative Farm in Europe
(and a few of my favorite wines from Georgia)
Temur Ugulava head of the Adjara Group owners of Rooms and Hotel Stamba interests me. He has successfully stood up to bullies purveying conventional wine and declared all of his hotels natural wine zones.
What luxury hotel is dedicated to natural wine? It’s astounding. Warehouse, the shop/wine bar inside of Stamba, in Tbilisi is a wild success, moving on average 1000 bottles a week (and sometimes such as on the party they threw for the Barcelona-based Bar Brutal, they sold 1500 bottles in a mere two days). And he makes sure the prices are kept low. One can drink Tschida or Octavin cheaper in Tbilisi than in Austria or France. And this is probably the only spot in Georgia you can find the local, Iago.
So, when I had heard that this restless man had developed a huge farm not far from Tbilisi, I had to go. I couldn’t grasp the scope (or veracity) until I saw it. I wasn’t prepared for the pride of Air Streams (opening for rental vacations in August) or the free-on-the-range Highland cows (imported from Denmark) happily munching away on the richness beneath them at Udabno Farm in their new home.
Shaggy, stately, cute, those bovines had Nathan Moss—in charge of the butchering for the operation— drooling. “When do I get to….” he started to ask.
“Never!” Nato Japaridze, the CEO of the farm (and Ugulava’s wife) snapped back.
On the way to the farm, Nathan crashed through lakes and skidded through lava-like mud until we hit the minuscule village of Udabno. We parked near those Air Streams and the future home of an artisan village. There, in a year (?) one will be able to buy Udabno products as well as craft items from the land, quite possibly, leather garments from the ethically raised animals that end up sizzling somewhere on plates.