Georgian wine enjoys export boost

Exports of Georgian wine saw an upturn in 2010, the agriculture ministry said on Friday, although the industry is still struggling to revive itself after losing its biggest foreign market in Russia.

Fifteen million bottles were exported over the past year - a 34 percent increase on 2009, ministry spokesman Giorgi Chaduneli told AFP.

"This is one of the government's priorities - to promote our traditional product and increase exports," Chaduneli said.

Ex-Soviet Georgia claims to be the birthplace of wine, citing archaeological finds which suggest that viniculture may have begun in the country as early as 8,000 years ago, before it reached western Europe.

But production fell by around 80 percent and the industry was severely damaged after Russia imposed a ban on Georgian wine in 2006 amid political tensions which eventually erupted into war two years later.

Since then, the authorities have been seeking new markets, although they have so far failed to return to the level of exports in the year before the ban, when 59 million bottles were sold abroad - mainly to Russia.

Fierce competition internationally means that the main importers are ex-Soviet states like Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus, where Georgian wine still retains brand awareness from the Communist era.