The Heritage and Economics of Georgian Wine

Learn about Georgian wine — and drink some, too.

Date: January 30, 2025

Time: 6:15 pm - 9:00 pm ET

Overview:

Georgia is the world's oldest wine producer, and the history of Georgian wine is woven together with the country's culture, politics, and economics. Join Mamuka Tsereteli for a lecture on the significance of Georgian wine, followed by a Q&A—and stick around for a wine tasting, paired with delicious Georgian food, to find out for yourself why Georgian wine is so special!

Program:

Introductory remarks by Prof. Rajeev Deheija, Professor of Public Policy and Economics

Ian Tattersall presents “Domestication of the grapevine and the origin of wine making in Georgia”

 Karl Storchmann presents “Introduction: The Georgian Wine Industry in a Few Slides”

Mamuka Tsereteli presents “The Wine Heritage as a Competitive Advantage of Georgia”

Wine tasting and Reception by Georgian Wine House

Speakers:

Ian Tattersall is a Curator Emeritus in the Anthropology Division of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and a specialist in human evolution and the biology of Madagascar’s lemurs.  He is the author of some thirty books, among them a trilogy on alcoholic beverages: A Natural History Of Wine (2015), A Natural History of Beer (2019), and Distilled: A Natural History of Spirits (2022), co-authored with his colleague Rob De Salle.

Dr. Mamuka Tsereteli is a Senior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the American Foreign Policy Council, President of the America-Georgia Business Council, and the founder of the Georgian Wine House, DC. Dr. Tsereteli has more than thirty years of experience in academia, diplomacy and business development, focusing on the Black Sea-Caspian region. Through his public and private initiatives, he has also promoted Georgian wines in the US for more than two decades.

Karl Storchmann is a Clinical Professor in NYU’s Economics Department. He is the founding Editor of the Journal of Wine Economics and the Executive Director of the American Association of Wine Economists AAWE.