Georgia is where wine was first made. The Caucasians of 3,500BC learned that if you bury wild grape juice, cold fermentation occurs, turning it into happy juice. This republic is defined by the vine: the alphabet describes the sinuous shapes of the vine at different stages in its development; national patron Saint Nino is depicted bearing a cross of vine shoots; and all Georgian churches are adorned with vinous motifs. Drinking wine, therefore, is not only a pleasure but a religious duty, especially when married to the ritual of The Feast.
My first Georgian feast took place near the troubled border with Chechnya. I'd travelled all day along ruined roads. Lunch was at an impromptu market: chewy, salty bread, white cheese and red and yellow cherries displayed like daisy chains and sold by the metre. After visiting vineyards, I was taken to a hamlet whose headman led me to his basement. Country Georgians still bury their wine in a consecrated place called the marani. Under a bare bulb, he scraped away at the packed earth before finding the clay kvevri he'd buried some years before: the sharp-end bulbous shape of a classical amphora is designed to be thrust into the earth and its terracotta respires, maintaining the contents constantly cool. Disturbing the wine with a ladle, he poured and toasted it: "Galmajous!" and was joined by two cousins who sang to the wine.
I emerged into late afternoon sunlight tipsy, and was driven away at speed. Irakli, my (previously jovial) translator, had turned taciturn. A glance behind found a dozen rusty saloons in hot pursuit. Stupid! I was out of mobile contact, had told no one my movements, and was heading towards Pankisi Gorge, where kidnapping is a career passed down from father to son.
We bumped along until a mountainside clothed in giant ferns stopped us. I was manhandled into a glade with the ominous rumble of a river in spate. Irakli then pushed me up to a tiny, roofless chapel and told me to pray to Saint Anthony - which, of course, I did, offering also to Buddha, Ganesh, Moses, Jesus and Mohammed. After about a lifetime, Irakli dragged me out and pushed me down a grass bank to where my pursuers had laid a riverside table with a full-on feast. Great joke! How they laughed at my whey face and unsteady legs. A wild piglet was roasting over vine shoots, and looked like it was laughing, too. Jerrycans of chilled wine were hauled from the river. I wanted to kill and kiss Irakli.
Instead, we had a feast. The oldest among us was elected tamada, or toastmaster. He had an assistant, the merikipe, who stayed sober and kept our tumblers charged. With salads of spinach and sour plum, pastes of pepper and pomegranate, yellow chicken legs and beef with walnuts before us, we received the first toast: "Mothers of the slain!" and knocked back the first glass of wine. The next toast was longer, glorifying the Caucasus, the soils of mother Georgia and - naturally - the vines that grow her grapes. Galmajous! Until our tamada gave the nod, food was not touched; neither was it deemed adult or manly to appear inebriated.
Eventually, we ate, and the joy this signalled triggered spontaneous song from my flush-faced fellow diners. Before I knew quite why, I was up on the table, performing my Zorba-meets-Boney-M double spins. Second time around, I caught sight of two burly mountain men, felt capes muddy, guns slung, barrelling towards us. They had dogs. I had kittens.
· Old Tibilisi Georgian Wines are sold by leading independent wine merchants and at ocado.com.
