ORGO
Gogi Dakishvili helped establish some of Georgia’s modern wineries and was among the first winemakers to bottle and export qvevri wines. Today, he works alongside his son Temuri at Teleda Orgo, drawing on decades of experience in both modern and traditional Georgian winemaking. Their winery is in Kisiskhevi, outside Telavi, in the foothills of the Gombori range, overlooking the Alazani Valley and the Greater Caucasus Mountains beyond.
Orgo focuses on vineyards at least 50 years old, a rarity in Georgia, where many older vines were uprooted during the Soviet period to make way for higher-yielding plantings. Preserving and working with these surviving vineyards is central to the Dakishvilis’ approach. The old vines produce concentrated fruit, which father and son handle carefully in the cellar to preserve freshness and balance.
The name “Orgo” refers to the flat stone lid traditionally used to seal a qvevri. The wines ferment spontaneously in these buried clay vessels, with the length of skin contact determined by the grape variety and vintage. They are bottled unfiltered, with small sulfur additions following malolactic fermentation.
For Gogi and Temuri, qvevri winemaking is a living tradition rather than a fixed set of rules. Their approach draws on generations of Georgian knowledge as well as their own experience in the vineyard and cellar, producing wines with the texture and depth of traditional qvevri fermentation, but with freshness and balance at their core.
