Online Georgian wine catalogue launches

Lovers of Georgian wine can now use a new online tool to help them choose their most preferred bottle of wine from international wine stores.

The Georgian Wine Catalogue launched today by Hvino aims to help wine connoisseurs to select the best bottle of wine in their price range.

The catalogue can be viewed at http://cat.hvino.com and uses the motto "Place for the Best”.

The catalogue has a unique feature that allows users to access the website from any mobile device while standing in a wine store, in front of a myriad of wine options.

The online tool helps users to pick the best bottle of wine to their desire, in their chosen price range. It can be especially useful when shop staff are less knowledgeable about Georgian wine products.

In addition, the catalogue has free online search box, where users can insert the name of a Georgian wine and it will provide an independent rating.

Georgian Wine Catalogue is a buying guide to Georgian wine targeted at international audiences who are interested in Georgian products.

Hvino project manager Inge Olsson believed the unique aspect of their catalogue was the its independent rating.

"All the wines which are listed in our Catalogue have been rated independently, by the world’s most prestigious sources. That’s what makes our project unique. Instead of offering commercial descriptions, we provide a simple and easy-to-read independent rating score for each wine,” Olsson said.

Hvino’s rating system was similar to international ratings, which made it easy to understand to users worldwide.

Currently the catalogue lists all the Georgian wines, which either have won gold medals at international contests or have been rated by leading international wine rating institutions.

Olsson believed Georgian wines were still relatively unknown on a global scale and not too many Georgian wine products had been awarded or rated internationally.

"This is why many wines are not yet represented in our catalogue. However, we hope our project will help stimulate Georgian winemakers to more actively obtain international ratings,” Olsson said.

The website can be used in English or Russian, making the catalogue convenient for Georgian wine fans from former Soviet republics as well as the USA, EU, China and other countries.

All Georgian wines which gain an international ratings or become gold award winners are automatically added to the catalogue for free.

However, the catalogue creators said they do not want to become an elitist platform, and would allow any Georgian wine to be listed on the catalogue.

"If the product does not have an independent rating, it may be published with the producer’s own description. But all such descriptions are marked as "commercial”, to clearly distinguish from independent information,” he said.