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Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

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Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#61

Post by gnull »

BrenBarn wrote: post #57
gnull wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you got that. Sounds like trying to use tropes from a superficial Hollywood action movie in real life, not my thing. I think that a Ukrainian in his sane mind would want to look at options he's dealt and pick the one that leads to most safety and prosperity to him and his family. At the same time the government ideologues are trying to indoctrinate him with nationalism to sacrifice it all for their goa…

Do you think that it is meaningful to think about things being good or evil in a manner that is separate from what is "safe" or "prosperous"? If someone points a gun at you and demands all your money, the safe thing is to give it to them. Does that mean it's a good outcome for all?

I do believe that the discussion of good and evil is a meaningful one, but it's nuanced and we must be extremely careful with definitions and not to confuse ethics debate with irrational emotions.

If someone points a gun at me, I give the money. If life is a strategy game, then this is the moment where you need to sacrifice a piece in order for the game to even continue. And money is usually a pawn in the big picture of life. I may feel it's unfair or that my ego/honor is hurt, but I'd work though that with my therapist, analyze it philosophically and decide what to do next instead of responding emotionally.

I personally don't value nationalist sentiment. From a humanist perspective, associating yourself with one specific nation and making it your goal to serve the elites who actually control it is unjustifiable. There are things I'd consider good and evil, but they're much more universal and not tied to one's birthplace, taste or mood. Education, progress, science are good to me. So if something damages these, I may call it evil.

Ukraine is not one of these though, it is a conflict where principals are fighting for selfish interests, while working their propaganda machines very hard to convince us that their goals are actually universal and humanistic, to harvest us as a resource. Depending on which bucket you ate your slop from, you get one bias or another. As an average citizen, you should not fool yourself thinking that you're one with something great that you must sacrifice yourself for it, and don't full yourself thinking you're serving some great good.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#62

Post by tpm »

inatreecrown2 wrote: post #59
penetrarthur wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of Georgian wines in EU. Especially the recently popular orange wines(white wine made like red wine).

I recently tried an orange wine from a very good maker in Austria, with excellent whites and reds. I don't like the orange wine though, not my taste. I wonder why it is so popular.

Every orange wine is different, so one is not representative.

For example I like the funky, wild ones.

But besides the taste, one thing people tend to like about those wines, although it's not reserved to orange wines, is the natural manufacturing process that for example also often means less or even no added sulfites. For example my wife can't drink wine with a lots of sulfites, she gets stuffed nose immediately and a headache later. While I'm not that sensitive, even I can feel it's easier to process for my body.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#63

Post by croisillon »

baud147258 wrote: post #55
usrnm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about, there are multiple wine-producing regions in the EU, and there is absolutely no problem finding Spanish, Italian or even German wine in any EU country. Even Georgian wines can be found, if you know what to look for

At least in France it's quite complicated to find wine from elsewhere unless you go to wine retailers.

it's true but basically they don't sell them because people wouldn't buy them

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#64

Post by gnull »

penetrarthur wrote: post #56
gnull wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt they will benefit from that integration much. But I'm pretty sure the way there will hurt. Georgia's economy is tied to Russia at the moment, and as you said Westerners are not exactly lining up to travel to Georgia and order its wine (Russians are). The narrative "people want EU (aka freedom and democracy), but bad dictators won't let them" is a populist one. And EU has been using it like carrot and stick to…

I've been to Georgia 10 years ago and there were a lot of tourists from Germany and France. Both the buses with organized trips for retired people and youngsters renting AirBnbs for cheap. The problem we faced was with the inconsistency in price/quality in restaurants and services. Some places are really cheap - a huge dinner for two in a "I want this, this and this and two bottles of wine" manner costed 25EUR, while…

What did the ratio of European tourists to Russian look like?

Not sure what grab of power you're referring to.

The inflow of Russians was a boost for Georgia. These are whole IT companies that moved with workers, high-paying jobs and taxes. Many of pro-Western views and European expectations of living standards (because they're from Moscow and St. Petersburg). Check specialty cafes in Tbilisi today and see when they opened. These are the white people with guilt syndrome who will sign up to Georgian language classes to show respect to the local culture. Hell, I'm sure you can see a change in people's average views on LGBT rights since 2022, since Georgia is known to be quite patriarchal homophobic.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#65

Post by tpm »

gnull wrote: post #46
victorbjorklund wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you think that Ukrainians also really want to be part of Russia and that they are just being manipulated by Westerners and that true Ukrainians wanna be part of Russian Empire? And that Russians are just liberating them.

Not sure where you got that. Sounds like trying to use tropes from a superficial Hollywood action movie in real life, not my thing. I think that a Ukrainian in his sane mind would want to look at options he's dealt and pick the one that leads to most safety and prosperity to him and his family. At the same time the government ideologues are trying to indoctrinate him with nationalism to sacrifice it all for their goa…

> I think that a Ukrainian in his sane mind would want to look at options he's dealt and pick the one that leads to most safety and prosperity to him and his family.

They have done this back in 2010's and decided that EU is the safe and prosperous future they want. In response, Russian mass murderers invaded and started to kill them. That is indeed a great ad for safety and prosperity inside the Russian world: you will be miserable and we will kill you whenever we feel like it.

Stop apologising pure evil.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#66

Post by bobthepanda »

gnull wrote: post #58
Tade0 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe the reason is not that EU magically turns everything it touches into gold (while Russian orcs turn it to crap, obviously), but that EU is carefully choosing who joins and doesn't let the bad prospects in? The EU gives certain conditions and it's up to the elites in a given country to meet them, as that necessarily means reining in corruption - to an extent. Fortunately for me, the ones in my mine decided that…

> Also it's a rather small economy producing largely low value products despite vast natural resources - there's no benefit in associating with them in this day and age. The cheap gas is not worth it. Why it's not worth it? I don't see how the quote would imply it. I don't see why they wouldn't encourage Russia to join EU too given what you wrote. In the worst case you'll get one more Hungary. And if Russia is corrup…

EU enlargement largely paused after Bulgaria and Romania because there was a sense that those countries had been let in too early before they had dealt with their corruption issues. Most of the Balkans haven’t made much progress on their accession for this reason.

There has also traditionally been hesitation to let in countries with active border disputes since Cyprus has been a geopolitical headache, but that kind of went out the window with the invasion.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#67

Post by NicuCalcea »

gnull wrote: post #54
PowerElectronix wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone that wanted in, got in. And got better living standards than those that didn't want in. Just having access to the european free market would do that, without considering the money that pours in from the eu to developing countries. When Ukraine wins the war and joins, you'll see how much better they get, too.

If it's that simple, why doesn't everyone "want in" and get those precious living standards? There must be a lot of stupid governments if they literally refuse free stuff. Or your statement is naive and overly simplistic. Guess which of the two is more likely? Does Georgia "want in"? I'm not so sure what that means. The population has mixed feelings about it, as I understand from friends there. The current government…

> There must be a lot of stupid governments if they literally refuse free stuff.

Yes? Why does that surprise you? Short-sighted politicians who prioritise immediate personal gain over long-term prosperity for their people exist everywhere.

That, and Russian interference.

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#68

Post by goobatrooba »

gregman1 wrote: post #11
riffraff wrote: post #3

Georgian cuisine and drinking is little known in the west but it's really, really good. It's a pity the country has been democratically backsliding for a while, which has limited their hopes of tighter integration with the EU.

As long as France is in EU no other country on earth can import good wine. Cheap - probably, heavily controlled and in many cases partially owned by French or in some rare cases other European companies (like in Chilean or Argentinian cases). This market is rather hardcore and kinda monopolized in EU. Go ask anyone who knows wine market or works at a Georgian (or any ex-Soviet restaurant). Georgian wine enjoyed this…

That makes no sense at all. There are plenty of other wine countries already in the EU. While France keeps strong on regional designations and standards, there is no one blocking wine imports except where they violate quality standards (think Californian wines full of pesticides not allowed in the EU). Every big French supermarket has Georgian wines alongside Portuguese, Croatian, ...

Re: Georgian wine culture dates back, uninterrupted, approximately 8k years

#70

Post by penetrarthur »

gnull wrote: post #64
penetrarthur wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to Georgia 10 years ago and there were a lot of tourists from Germany and France. Both the buses with organized trips for retired people and youngsters renting AirBnbs for cheap. The problem we faced was with the inconsistency in price/quality in restaurants and services. Some places are really cheap - a huge dinner for two in a "I want this, this and this and two bottles of wine" manner costed 25EUR, while…

What did the ratio of European tourists to Russian look like? Not sure what grab of power you're referring to. The inflow of Russians was a boost for Georgia. These are whole IT companies that moved with workers, high-paying jobs and taxes. Many of pro-Western views and European expectations of living standards (because they're from Moscow and St. Petersburg). Check specialty cafes in Tbilisi today and see when they…

There were not a whole lot of Russian tourists 10 years ago because the memories from Russian invasion of 2008 were still fresh.

I'm not saying that inflow of Russians is particularly bad, it just raised the prices of everything very significantly, and together with the pro-Russian government and reversal in pro-European development, the European tourist influx is stagnant at best.

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