Came for the wine, left with the water
Picture: Campbell Mattinson.
I visited Georgia last week – the home and indeed birthplace of wine – and came away raving about the water.
That’s not quite true because Georgia’s wine landscape is endlessly fascinating. But I had a moment with the water – or more accurately, the mineral water – that got me quite excited.
The moment started with a mineral water made under the brand Nabeghlavi, and was prosecuted by a mineral water branded as Borjomi.
Mineral water, when I was a kid, was a bit of a thing in our family, both immediate and extended. We’d travel to Hepburn Springs in central-ish Victoria and fill up dozens and dozens of soft drink bottles with the natural mineral water that flows there, and bring the stash home. The truth is that these bottles didn’t travel so well; the water went brown and rusty if you didn’t drink it fast enough. But this water was not just water-with-a-slight spritz to it. It was water, natural, but it had a flavour to it, mineral-like.
I loved it. In hindsight it was probably a bit metallic but I loved the character of it, the other. Now in my everyday life I buy and drink a lot of water that is bottled under the name “mineral” water that is, to taste, essentially indistinguishable from soda water. There’s nothing really minerally about them. I find this perpetually disappointing, if not depressing. If I want soda water I’ll buy soda water. I want mineral water to be different.
On my first afternoon in Tbilisi in Georgia I found myself, to my shame, at a ‘tourist trap’ restaurant. I was ill, and hadn’t slept in 24 hours, and so instead of diving into the local wine culture, I instead ordered a soda water.
This order made the waitress hesitate. There was a minor language difficulty. Soda water? Yes soda water.
Nabeghlavi Mineral Water.
It’s one of the most common mineral waters in Georgia. And it’s beautiful.
The bottle that she then produced was so impressively packaged that I had to check the front label to make sure that it was water and not alcohol. It was Nabeghlavi Georgian Natural Mineral Water.
It had me hooked from the first sip. It had flavour. It was soft. I took a picture of the bottle so that I wouldn’t forget its name. Nabeghlavi water is common in Georgia – it’s sourced from the Meskheti Mountain Range – but, even so, it’s a beautiful mineral water.
I wouldn’t be writing this note though if it wasn’t for the mineral water served at lunch at Wine Factory N1 in Tbilisi the next day. This was the Borjomi. There’s a still version of the Borjomi and there’s the mineral water version. Both are from the Borjomi Valley, a “volcanic spring rich in minerals”, but the still version is unremarkable. The mineral water version though is a revelation.
Oh my giddy aunt. Talk about character. Salt, chalk, chamomile tea; it’s a natural mineral water of its own design. I came across the Borjomi a few times over the course of a week and every time I thought: wow. Indeed it’s so wow that it would be polarising. Yes, a polarising water. From a natural volcanic spring.
Character in general is in plentiful supply in Georgia. Borjomi Mineral Water typifies it. I’m not sure that I’d want to drink this water every day but if I was at a restaurant and it was available, I’d drown myself in it.
