Saamuri Natural Wine Salon

Fabrika was a Soviet sewing factory until 1990. It sat abandoned for 25 years. In 2016, MUA architects turned it into Tbilisi's coolest creative space. The Jungle Room — 202 square metres of plant-filled industrial concrete — hosts Saamuri twice a year: 40+ natural wine producers pouring qvevri wines for 150 GEL. Ninety percent of the wine at this festival is exported to Japan, Denmark, and the US before Georgians can drink it. Maia Chokhonelidze founded Saamuri in 2021. The 2006 Russian embargo accidentally launched Georgian natural wine internationally — when Russia closed the door, the world opened it.

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1 Locate the Jungle Room Inside the Soviet Sewing Factory History · Free

   Where: Enter Fabrika at 8 Egnate Ninoshvili St — take Marjanishvili metro (10-minute walk) or walk from Agmashenebeli Avenue. The entrance is an industrial arch that gives nothing away.

   What: This building made women's clothes in Soviet Georgia. When the USSR collapsed in 1990, it was shuttered and abandoned for 25 years. In 2016 architects MUA gutted it and turned it into Tbilisi's coolest creative hub — 8,000 square meters of Soviet bones now housing cafes, artist studios, co-working space, and the largest hostel in the Caucasus region. Then someone had the idea to put a jungle inside it. Up the courtyard stairs is the Jungle Room: 202 square meters of tropical plants, antique carpets, and colorful furniture wrapped in Soviet concrete. This is where Georgia's most interesting wine festival happens every May.

   How: Walk through the courtyard (graffiti walls, bean bag chairs, young Tbilisi creative crowd) and find the stairs to the Jungle Room. On salon day, you'll hear it before you see it — the sound of 40 producers pouring wine at once. Stop at the courtyard for 30 seconds and take in the contrast: a crumbling factory shell, now the living room of Georgian wine culture.

   Backup: If the Jungle Room doors aren't open yet (public entry starts at 12:00), spend the wait in the Fabrika courtyard — the energy is worth it on its own.

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2. 2 Claim Your Glass and Decode the NWA Badge Wine · Price: low

   Where: At the entrance to the Jungle Room. Tickets via tkt.ge in advance — the salon sells out. Entry includes a tasting glass.

   What: Before you taste anything, look for the NWA logo on producer tables. The Georgian Natural Wine Association was founded in February 2017 by 10 winemakers who drew a line in the sand: no additives, no industrial methods, spontaneous fermentation only, organic viticulture only — and unannounced inspections. The membership fee is just 150 GEL. What they're selling is not a certificate; it's a philosophy. Saamuri's founder Maia Chokhonelidze built this bar at Fabrika in 2021 specifically to champion these producers — and the salon is her annual showcase.

   How: Buy tickets at tkt.ge before arriving (they go fast). Collect your glass at the door and look at the table layout — NWA-certified producers will have the association badge. Prioritize those tables first. Saamuri curates 40+ producers from across Georgia plus international guests (2025 included Austria, Turkey, and Tuscany — a deliberate signal that Georgia's natural wine movement now sits in global conversation).

   Backup: If tickets are sold out, Saamuri Wine Bar in the Fabrika courtyard is open before and after the salon — order from their 100-wine list, which overlaps heavily with salon producers.

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3. 3 Taste the Wine That Invented Orange Wine 8,000 Years Before Anyone Called It That Wine · Price: low

   Where: At any qvevri producer's table inside the Jungle Room.

   What: In 2013, UNESCO did something it has only done once for any winemaking tradition on Earth: it inscribed Georgia's qvevri method as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The method is this: you take white grapes — Rkatsiteli, Kisi, Mtsvane, Khikhvi — and you ferment them with their skins, seeds, and stems in an egg-shaped clay vessel buried underground, for up to six months. The result is amber wine. The whole world now calls this 'orange wine' or 'skin contact' and charges €40 a bottle in Paris wine bars. Georgia has been doing it since 6000 BCE — pottery shards with grape residue from Gadachrili Gora site prove it. The hipsters in Paris didn't discover this. They rediscovered it.

   How: Find a table pouring Rkatsiteli or Kisi in qvevri. Ask the producer: 'Rogor moamzade?' — 'How did you make it?' Even if they speak limited English, they will light up. Smell before you taste: dried peach, honey, a faint tannic grip. This is what wine tasted like for most of human history. Look for Imerishvili's Rkatsiteli (Valo label, 2024 — 21 days skin contact in steel) and Mzis Tvali's Rkatsiteli/Khikhvi/Mtsvane blend in qvevri — both were standout pours at the 2025 edition.

   Backup: Any amber wine at any table will do the job. There are no bad producers here — every one passed Saamuri's personal curation plus (for NWA members) unannounced field inspections.

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4. 4 Find a Producer Whose Wine Travels 8,000 Kilometers to Japan Wine · Price: low

   Where: Any table inside the Jungle Room where you can have a real conversation with the winemaker.

   What: Saamuri the wine bar exports 90% of its own production to Japan, the USA, China, and Europe. The salon's producers are in the same boat — small Georgian families making wine in buried clay pots, selling most of it abroad because international natural wine buyers arrived before Georgian consumers fully caught up. Ask any producer where their wine goes. The answer tells you everything about Georgia's position in the natural wine world right now: a country where 8,000-year-old methods became the most fashionable thing in Tokyo. The Russia wine embargo of 2006 — political punishment — accidentally forced Georgian producers to diversify to Western and Asian markets. The humiliation became the launch.

   How: Around 3 or 4 producers in, slow down. Pick a table where there's no queue and ask: 'Where do you export?' Then ask what percentage stays in Georgia. The number is almost always surprising. This conversation — a small farmer in a Soviet factory, telling you their wine is on a list in Osaka — is the story.

   Backup: If language is a barrier, find a bilingual Georgian wine lover (they're everywhere in this crowd) to translate — Tbilisi's wine scene is genuinely welcoming to foreigners asking real questions.

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5. 5 Drink Tap Rkatsiteli in the Courtyard Where Soviet Workers Ate Lunch Adventure · Price: low

   Where: Saamuri Wine Bar, Fabrika courtyard — ground level, the green corner with plants. Open before and after the salon.

   What: After two hours inside the Jungle Room tasting 40 producers, come downstairs to the Saamuri bar in the courtyard and order from the tap. Yes — wine on tap. It sounds gimmicky until you understand why: oxygen kills natural wine faster than conventional. The tap system means every glass is as fresh as the one before it. This is the same concrete courtyard where Soviet workers came for lunch breaks, punching time cards to make women's clothes. Now: a 24-year-old Georgian is pouring you skin-contact Rkatsiteli from a stainless steel tap, in the shadow of the same factory walls. The courtyard hasn't changed. Everything else has.

   How: Walk down from the Jungle Room to the Fabrika courtyard. Find Saamuri's green corner — it's the corner with the plants and the wine list on a chalkboard. Ask for whatever is on tap. Sit down. You've just spent the afternoon inside the best natural wine salon in the Caucasus, in a building that once turned out Soviet dresses. Order a second glass and consider that bottle of Georgian amber wine you want to buy to take home.

   Backup: If the tap is temporarily unavailable, any glass from their bottle list (20–250 GEL range) works. The setting is the point.

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6. 6 Watch the 10am Professional Hour From Outside — Then Walk In at Noon Adventure · Free · Optional

   Where: Outside the Jungle Room entrance, Fabrika courtyard, from 10:00 onwards on salon day.

   What: From 10:00 to 12:00, the Saamuri Natural Wine Salon is closed to the public. Only sommeliers, importers, restaurateurs, and wine professionals can enter. This is where the deals get made — the Japanese buyer tasting next to the Georgian farmer who doesn't know yet that their wine is about to get a Tokyo restaurant listing. At noon the doors open. The professionals have been working the room for two hours. The producers are warmed up, their stories flowing.

   How: If you arrive at 10:00, you'll see the professional hour in full swing through the courtyard energy. Use the time: explore Fabrika's studios, grab a coffee in the courtyard, let the space tell you its stories. At 11:50 get in line for the noon opening. You want to be in the first wave — the producers are at peak energy, the bottles are still fresh, and the Jungle Room isn't yet crowded. The best conversations happen in the first 30 minutes of public entry.

   Backup: This step works any year the salon runs (annual, always May). Check tkt.ge and Saamuri's Instagram for the specific date — it's usually the first or second Sunday of May.

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Insider tips

• Fabrika is a converted Soviet sewing factory - incredible venue

• 40+ small wineries producing organic/natural wines

• Also features cider and traditional distillates

• Explore Fabrika's shops/cafes after