National Wine Agency of Georgia Deputy Chairman David Tkemaladze: “Georgian wine will occupy respectable spot on Japanese wine market”

Between March 10-May 6, Japan’s capital Tokyo hosted series of exhibitions introducing the rich story of Georgian winemaking and the country’s culture to the local public, wine professionals and companies.

 

Displays featuring innovative mixed reality technology, wine tasting opportunities and masterclass events enabled visitors to get in touch with various facets of Georgian cultural life and sparked interest of Japanese industry experts.

 

Brought to the local audience by the National Wine Agency of Georgia and the Georgian Wine Association, the series Georgia: Homeland of Wine followed another recent exhibition in Bordeaux, France on the same subject.

 

The two events were part of a drive by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture of Georgia to promote the story of 8,000 years of viticulture on the country’s modern territory to public audiences and professionals worldwide.

 

Agenda.ge spoke to David Tkemaladze, Deputy Chairman of the National Wine Agency of Georgia, about the displays in Tokyo and prospects for Georgian wine in the country.

 

Agenda.ge: With the Georgia: Homeland of Wine display in Tokyo now behind us, how happy are you with the interest it drew from visitors and industry experts?

 

National Wine Agency Deputy Chairman David Tkemaladze: This exhibition would not have happened without the interest. This was not a routine display that you can take part in another local context. The project Georgia: Homeland of Wine involves exhibitions and presentations of professional and adjacent fields — these involve professional wine tasting, presentation of the Georgian feast tradition, tourist potential, polyphonic singing and other elements.

 

The interest from the Japanese partners was sparked following a number of presentations and talks over a period of time. It is premature to talk about outcomes — wine export figures, which will be a measure of these results, could take a couple of years to become conclusive. In the meanwhile, we will obviously not rest on our laurels and continue our work, however the fact that Georgia introduced itself to the Japanese wine market with such significance and honour will be a significant driving factor. We will also take follow-up steps in the professional wine field. We have been taking part in professional wine exhibitions in Japan for six to seven years now, however this was a different project, with different media reaction and attention from the public and the business. All in all, we can say we are very glad in this regard.

 

 

Visitors in Tokyo were introduced to Georgian winemaking and other facets of the country's culture at the exhibition. Photo: National Wine Agency of Georgia.

 

The display was mostly centred around wine — how much did other facets of Georgian culture draw an interest from audiences in Tokyo?

 

The focus on wine aims to promote and reinforce around the world, and in Japan, the fact that Georgia is historically the homeland of wine, which is confirmed through scientific studies of international stature. If there were any illusions on this matter before, I think the facts should now be accepted widely.

 

On the other hand, this is a market of 130 million residents where we have been working, and we believe we will occupy a respectable and relevant spot on this wide world of wine. Georgian wine deserves the Japanese market, which is very demanding in terms of quality, the relevant culture and the historical roots of winemaking in our country, its 8,000-year-long tradition of wine.

 

These factors being important to the host country, we aimed to place a focus on them. And we would have found it difficult to hold these events otherwise, when basically all significant exposition venues there are already booked for years 2021-2023. It is hard to just receive access to exhibition venues on the spot.

 

We also needed support from important contacts. We received major assistance from His Excellency Mr. Tadaharu Uehara, the Ambassador of Japan to Georgia — for which we are very grateful — as well as the Georgian Embassy in Japan. The latter, with very minor human resources available, carried out an incredible deal of work, which bore fruit with our well-presented and respectable presentation of the project to the Japanese audience.

 

How difficult is it to devise and prepare the right form for such presentation, for what is a country of a new culture for Georgian wine?

 

In general it is not complicated, however there are specifics that need to be taken into account. Earlier we brought the project to a large and very important audience for the first time in Bordeaux — the world capital of wine — where even minor developments on the market are noticed. The specifics were different in France, with focus placed more on scientific and historical aspects of Georgian winemaking. That was due to the then-newly published scientific confirmation that backed our claim for Georgia being the homeland of wine.

 

The focus in Japan was more on the technological innovation. We still utilised using artifacts from archaeological discoveries in Georgia, however we also had much more events such as presentations from the National Tourism Administration of Georgia, events around Georgian feast tradition and master classes. There were also events from private wine producers, a change from the Bordeaux event. All this was accompanied with a lot of interest from visitors — they took a deep interest to Georgian wine and its background, asking questions, taking photographs of labels and exhibits and showing attention for the subject.

 

 

Kenichi Ohashi, the only wine expert in Japan bearing the title of Master of Wine, spoke at the display 'Georgia: Homeland of Wine' in Tokyo. Photo: National Wine Agency of Georgia.

 

You mentioned master classes and other events that accompanied the exhibition. Among these was a public talk by Mr. Kenichi Ohashi, the only Master of Wine in entire Japan, who spoke about Georgian wine. How important was his role and participation?

 

Mr. Ohashi — a very authoritative figure in the professional field of wine — has been partnering with us for three years now. In any presentation of talk he is the one providing accurate information to the Japanese public interested in wine, making his assessments very important and valuable. He has also visited Georgia and brought with him guests ranging from potential investors to wine bloggers and reporters. He has now held three presentations on Georgia this year — two of these independently, within our cooperation with him, and the third one as part of the Georgia: Homeland of Wine project.

 

Was the follow-up reaction by the local media to the project itself important, or do you view it as a by-effect of the displays?

 

The reports were an accompanying feature of the event, and we will be expecting out Embassy to be in touch with us about further media reaction. Georgia: Homeland of Wine had a major response as a result of our work to select the best timing for holding it in Tokyo, as well as coinciding it with the Japanese-Georgian Business Forum, where numerous meetings between high-ranking Japanese businesspeople with the Prime Minister and ministers of Georgia were organised by the Enterprise Georgia programme.

 

This further raised the temperature for the occasions and created a synergy for them. In conclusion, the media reaction involved both wine- and culture-related coverage and political and big business angle. I believe the many agencies involved carried out a good work for these two months in Tokyo.

 

Presenting Georgia as homeland of wine involved utilization of the Warp Square technology, which represents a form of mixed reality presentation. Could it be said that this was the most innovative way of presenting Georgian wine and culture so far?

 

You could say so. It was only unfortunate that the Sony Music Communications filming crew that arrived in Georgia from Germany and Japan [to carry out filming for the subsequent interactive, multimedia presentation via Warp Square] found themselves in the country during the period where the most vibrant beauty of the natural season could not be captured on lens.

 

But we cooperated well with them and found graphical solutions for the Warp Square presentation, such as using the technology to allow visitors to interact with its content using hand shadows. They could find much broader information on subjects like grapevine types and unique exhibits, compared to what could be found in the conventional exhibition space. This interaction is a new development for visual technology and we were advised to use it by our partners from Sony Music Communications. The Georgian side also acquired a lot of useful experience from the collaboration.

 

I hope the people who worked on this technological side of the project were left hungry enough with the Georgian nature and culture to want to travel again to our country — maybe during a different season, in summer or spring — to film new content about Georgia as the homeland of wine.

 

 

The exhibition featured interactive multimedia presentations about provinces, products and culture of Georgia. Photo: National Wine Agency of Georgia.

 

Another filming crew in Georgia right now is a group from Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, on visit to Georgia’s winemaking province of Kakheti and shooting a documentary about history of wine and alcoholic beverages. How did this documentary came about?

 

Our Agency is collaborating with the Georgian Wine Association for carrying out this project, with the latter working directly with NHK and hosting the broadcaster’s visiting crew, based on interest from the Japanese side. Beside hosting these visitors the Association is also providing them with access to museum collections and offering other types of support during their work in Georgia. All these multilateral ties are an outcome of the new positioning of Georgia in the field of wine that has made the country known.

 

You recently had a conversation on national TV in Georgia where it was stated that the focus for Georgia’s wine exports is shifting from quantity to quality. What will be the measure of success for the product in this case?

 

Quantity is still of clear importance to us — we aim to diversify our markets, as a matter of strategic importance for our country, along with promotion of wine. But the subject of quantity versus quality should not perceived as if wine of poor quality features anywhere in these goals. It is about a narrower interest in premium wines in Japan from a large gamut of wine types. We talk about exclusive types, with exquisite taste and origins, when we mention these premium wines. In Japan, there is this particular interest in the premium section, possibly due to the country’s economy that is doing well and enables citizens to afford these wines. For us, quantity is important but so is this exclusive section, in the specific theme of the Japanese market.

 

Following the large-scale exhibition in Bordeaux and then the project in Tokyo. What are your expectations on future expansion? Do you see the Asian market opening up following the displays in the Japanese capital?

 

We do expect further interest. We chose Japan because it is a country with major influence in terms of economy and technological innovation throughout the world but particularly for its regional states. We are working on projects involving China and South Korea, with preliminary work already done via our respective Embassies and local interest identified. In the West, our plans involve the United States market and possibly a number of exhibitions to be held on both east and west coasts by 2020-2021.