The Real Grapes of Wrath: Wine Politics in Georgia

Niko Pirosmanashvili [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Georgian Politics in Action

Washington-based analyst Vladimir Socor has a new briefing out that takes a look at the political opposition in Georgia and its possible upcoming activities. I was particularly struck by a passage that focussed on how wine is figuring into the opposition's (and Moscow's) calculus. From Socor's piece:

As an ad-hoc alliance of firebrand politicians, the Georgian Party has a narrow social base. However, it can mobilize (as did the radical opposition under a somewhat different leadership in 2007-2009) certain sections from Tbilisi’s social milieu for street action. Tbilisi (more than the provinces) concentrates social groups that lost out with the Soviet system’s collapse, and again in the post-2003 modernization process. Apart from certain Tbilisi neighborhoods, the Georgian Party is targeting wine-growers in the Kakheti district, hard hit by Russia’s embargo on Georgia wine. Blaming President Mikheil Saakashvili’s government for this situation, the Georgian Party promises to lift the embargo by working with Russia, and generally improving relations with Moscow. 

Moscow also seeks to exploit the political effects of its embargo against Georgia. On April 29 Gennady Onishchenko, head of Russia’s consumer protection agency, announced that Russia is prepared to discuss the possibility of lifting the wine embargo, not with the Georgian government, but with Georgian opposition representatives. Kakha Kukava, leader of the opposition group Free Georgia, leaped at the offer on the same day; others may well follow to collect this political gift in Moscow. The management of Tbilisi Wines, one of Georgia’s largest wine companies, hailed the prospect of lifting the embargo by any means possible: “The format of the talks does not matter; only the results matter,” it stated (Interfax, April 29).