Okro’s Wines / Sister’s Wines
Quick facts:
Location: the village of Sighnaghi, in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia
Owner & winemaker: John and Jane Okruashvili
Vineyard management: Practicing organic and biodynamic. 17 hectares. 60,000-70,000 bottles annually.
Soils: Dark clay and sandstone in Eastern Georgia; riverstone and clay in Central Georgia
Main varieties: Ancient indigenous Georgian varieties, including Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Kisi, Rose Rkatsiteli, Budeshuri Saperavi, Classic Saperavi, and Khikhvi in Kakheti, Eastern Georgia; Tsitska and Tsolikouri in Imereti in Western Georgia; Tavkveri, Shavkapito, Cuinuri, and Goruli Mtsvane in Kartli in Central Georgia.
Winemaking: John and his sister, Jane, work with indigenous grape varieties from all over Georgia according to the traditional techniques of each region—namely, skin contact in Eastern Kakheti, and direct press in Western Imereti. Grapes are hand-harvested. Depending on the cuvée, some grapes are gently pressed in a small press, while others ferment as whole clusters in qvevri. Skin contact ranges from just a few hours to as long as six months for white wines, and typically up to two weeks for reds. Most of Okro’s wines are aged for 2-3 years in qvevri; some age briefly in stainless steel. There is no fining or filtering, and only very minimal SO2 at bottling as needed.
Wines
John Okruashvili can’t remember a life without wine. “Wine is culture in Georgia,” the physicist-turned-winemaker says from the terrace of his childhood home, where he grew up drinking his father’s homemade amber wine.
John’s family has grown grapes and made wine in the charming hilltop town of Signaghi—about 70 miles east of Tbilisi, in the famed Kakheti wine region of Eastern Georgia—for more generations than he can count.
“It’s part of our blood and our spirit. My family was making wine all the time,” he says. The practice of fermenting grape juice stretches back 8,000 years in Georgia, a country which is widely considered to be the birthplace of wine. Here, the beverage is sacred, and deeply communal.
John’s skin-contact Rkatsiteli is his tribute to the traditional wines he was raised on. Such wines typically involve local grapes macerating for months on end in qvevri, the egg-shaped earthenware vessels that are buried in the ground and are a hallmark of Georgian winemaking. The results can be tea-like, at times honeyed, and almost savory, with a distinct tannic structure imparted by extended skin contact—but always unmistakably Georgian. For John, that particular flavor proved difficult to find in his early travels outside of Georgia.
“I was moving around a lot, all across the world,” says John, who earned his PhD in physics at the University of Southampton before traveling widely for his telecommunications work with Cisco in the late 1990s (a job he still holds, in addition to winemaking). “The wines I was tasting—I couldn’t feel that same energy as when I was a kid, when I would take a sip of the wines my family was making, with some of my friends or dad or grandad sitting around the demijohn.” It was the elusive memory of his family’s wines that eventually lured him home.
“I was curious,” he explains. “I thought it might be a little difficult to make good wine.” In 2004, he set about finding out. At a farmers’ market in Tbilisi, he bought 300 kilos of Rkatsiteli, then crushed them into barrels in the basement of his apartment.
“It was a challenge for me, like entering into a different and beautiful world,” he says. He left the wines to ferment for a few months in qvevri, and soon caught a glimpse of the magic he grew up with. “It was already similar—it had some of the same feeling.”
John bought 600 kilos of grapes the following year, and began restoring the family vineyard that had fallen into disrepair during his years abroad. As he cobbled together equipment and funds, he experimented with the wines and purchased additional vineyards, eventually bottling the first official vintage in 2010. Today, his vineyards span high-altitude plots in Kakheti—some planted at nearly 1,000 meters above sea level—and lower sites in Central Kartli and the Eastern Alazani Valley, which his younger sister Jane oversees to craft her own wines, fittingly called Sister’s Wines.
In the vineyards, new plantings are farmed organically from the start. The only treatment used is copper sulfate; otherwise, nothing is added. John avoids irrigation to encourage vines to develop deep, vertical roots that draw minerality from the soil. Purchased parcels are converted immediately to this regimen of organic farming, with a three-year transition to cleanse any prior chemical use.
Together, John and Jane have carried on the family tradition, crafting wines that honor their heritage while incorporating new techniques. Inspired by their colleagues in France, the siblings began crafting some of the earliest pétillant-naturels in Georgia in 2013, fermenting them in small 600-800 liter qvevris in their early-20th century cellar. They’ve since built out another underground cellar—a Soviet Era-drinking reservoir—beside their home. There, they have enough space for qvevris large enough for foot stomping and occasional punch downs during fermentation—and most importantly, room to let the wines age for 2-3 years. “It’s the ancestors’ way, so I stick to it,” he says.
When it comes to John and Jane’s winemaking technique, their overarching desire is to respect the local terroir and the grapes themselves.
“There is a cliché with Georgian wine, where people think you just need to macerate all grapes for 6 months and that’s it. That’s not true,” John says. “We have varieties from Eastern, Western, and Central Georgia, and they’re all different.” He and Jane treat each variety according to the ancient techniques of the region—namely, employing skin contact in Eastern Kakheti, and direct press on the more delicate grapes like Tsitska and Tsolikori from Western Imereti.
All grapes are harvested by hand. Depending on the cuvée, some grapes are gently pressed in a small press, while others ferment as whole clusters in qvevri. Skin contact ranges from just a few hours to as long as six months for white wines, and typically up to two weeks for reds. The wines are left unfined and unfiltered, with only a minimal dose of sulfur added at bottling when necessary.
“Nothing is happening in Georgia without wine,” John says. After your first visit to the country, the inverse also rings true—nothing is happening in wine without Georgia.
Rkatsiteli
Grapes: 100% Rkatsiteli
Vineyard: 50-60-year-old vines at nearly 1,000 meters above sea level, with dark clay and sandstone soils beneath a 40 cm top soil. Organically farmed. Southern-exposed slopes, Village Nukriani, Near Town Signagi in Kakheti Region.
Making of: Whole bunches (skins and stems included) are fermented and macerated in qvevri for six months, followed by an extended two-year aging period in the same qvevri before bottling.
Personality: Deeply structured and textural, with firm tannins balanced by the freshness of high-altitude fruit. Layers of tea, dried apricot, and spice unfold with air—a powerful yet graceful expression of traditional Kakhetian amber wine, refined and time-matured.
Zvari Rkatsiteli
Winemaker’s Note: “Zvari is not macerated in qvevri, it’s in stainless steel—it’s my entry level into the maceration world. There’s not as much complexity as when making wine in qvevri, but it gives the idea of maceration, which is part of the Georgian wine identity.”
Grapes: 100% Rkatsiteli
Vineyard: From the same high-altitude site as Okro’s Rkatsiteli— 45-year-old vines at nearly 1,000 meters above sea level, with dark clay and sandstone soils beneath the top soil. Organically farmed, southern-exposed slopes, Village Nukriani, Near Town Signagi in Kakheti Region. Zvari means “edge” — literally the upper edge of the viable vineyard site, as higher altitudes would be too cold for the grapes.
Making of: Grapes are hand-harvested and macerated on their skins for 2 weeks in stainless steel, then briefly aged in the same vessel before bottling.
Personality: A fresher, more delicate take on Rkatsiteli—aromatic, gently tannic, light amber in color and full of citrus-peel and herbal notes. Lively, approachable and balanced, it highlights the grape’s precision and minerality rather than its power.
Sister’s Wines, Tavkveri Rose 2022
Grapes: 100% Tavkveri
Vineyard: Located about 300 meters above sea level on the right bank of the Ksani River in Central Georgia. Riverstone and clay soils. Organically farmed.
Making of: Hand-harvested. Grapes spend only a couple of hours on the skins in the press while draining—there’s no extended maceration or pressing. The juice is then vinified and aged in qvevri for a little over two years before bottling.
Personality: Elegant and quietly complex, with savory depth from long qvevri aging. Notes of wild strawberry, rosehip, and saline minerality make it a distinctive Georgian rosé, both delicate and grounded.
Rkatsiteli 2023 – Upper hill vineyards, almost on 1000 meter above the sea level at village Nukriani, Near Town Signagi in Kakheti Region. Dark clay and
sandstone soil below 30cm. Southern exposition of the slope. About 50-60 year old vineyard. Full bunch Qvevri maceration for 6 months and aging in Qvevri
for 2 years.