Wine of Kings: The Story of Atenuri Sparkling

Long before modern cellars, Ateni was already known for a lively, sparkling wine born in qvevri. This is the heritage we love to recount — and the tradition that inspired our own sparkling today.

A wine that woke up in spring

Ateni is, in our telling, the homeland of Georgian sparkling wine. Historically, a naturally sparkling "Atenuri" has been known here since the 11th century — and it was made in qvevri, the large clay vessels buried in the ground.

The method was beautifully simple. While the wine was still fermenting, our ancestors would top up one qvevri from a second one and seal it tightly. Fermentation finished underground, sealed away through the cold months. Then, when the qvevri was opened in spring, the wine came alive — gassy, full of fine bubbles, leaping and lively.

Why kings came in person

The wine that emerged was prized enough that, in Ateni's telling, Georgian kings would come themselves to open the qvevri and feel this wonder of nature — a nectar worth the journey. The estate proudly recounts that the historian Vakhushti Batonishvili called Atenuri the "wine of kings" (ღვინო მეფეთა). We offer this as our cherished heritage story rather than as documented historiography.

It is worth being precise about what we make today. Our current wines are not made the 11th-century qvevri way — they are aged in oak barrels. The qvevri sparkling belongs to history; it is the inspiration, not the recipe.

The Ateni appellation

That sparkling heritage is recognised in law. "Ateni (Atenuri)" is an officially registered Georgian appellation of origin (PDO), registered in 2007. Among Georgia's registered appellations it holds a distinction worth stating carefully: it is Georgia's only registered PDO classified as a sparkling-wine appellation. That does not mean sparkling wine is made nowhere else in Georgia — it means Ateni's place in the country's sparkling story is written into the appellation register itself.

From history to our own glass

We were the first in our district to begin classical-method sparkling production. (In the Soviet era, the Ateni wine factory did make sparkling — but by the Charmat, or reservoir, tank method, not the champagne method.) And in 2021 we created exactly this kind of lively drink in our own way: a Pet-Nat, a natural sparkling, from Goruli Mtsvane and Chinuri.

When you raise a glass of our sparkling, you taste a thread that runs back through the centuries — a wine that, here in Ateni, has always known how to come alive.