Georgia 2025: Winemaking Power and Strategic Caucasus Hub
Export Performance That Demands Attention
The 2025 figures published by Wine Intelligence are unambiguous: Georgia exported 89.7 million litres of wine and 46.6 million litres of spirits, for a combined value of $550.6 million, reaching 71 countries for wine alone. These volumes, accompanied by a record harvest of 340,000 tonnes of grapes (the largest in thirty years), place Georgia among the producer-exporters that matter on a global scale.
A surface reading might stop there. But what catches an analyst's eye is less the raw performance than what it reveals about the country's structural trajectory.
A Dual Movement: Diversification and Premiumisation
Two signals deserve to be read together. On one side, volumes declined: wine lost 5% in quantity and spirits 15%. On the other, the average export price rose from $2.91 per litre in 2024 to $2.98 in 2025. This scissors effect reflects a deliberate premiumisation strategy, confirmed by pricing on premium markets: $6.20 per litre in the United States, $5.82 in Japan, $5.10 in the United Kingdom.
At the same time, the geography of destinations is broadening. Poland remains the top market ($17 million), but China grew 6% to reach $9.8 million, and markets like Canada (+24%), Israel (+23%) and Japan (+34%) show growth rates that signal active demand, not token penetration. Georgia is no longer simply seeking to sell volumes: it is building an international footprint.
This positioning is backed by the Georgian state, which subsidises premium varieties in the Racha region (up to 4 lari per kilo for noble grape varieties) and sets floor prices to protect growers from downward pressure on the harvest. This type of targeted, technical public support signals an industry structuring itself for the long term, not an opportunistic one.
Georgia as Interface: Beyond Georgian Wine
A strictly viticultural analysis captures only part of the reality. Georgia occupies a singular geographical and institutional position: a World Trade Organization member, a signatory of an Association Agreement with the European Union (DCFTA), connected by road and rail to Central Asian and South Caucasus markets, and with Black Sea port infrastructure via Poti and Batumi.
This combination makes Tbilisi and its free zones a natural logistical node for commercial flows seeking to remain compliant while crossing geopolitically complex zones. For European, Argentine or Asian producers wishing to access the Russian market without direct exposure, Georgia offers something rare: a recognised, auditable territory with local operators accustomed to working within several regulatory frameworks simultaneously.
Certificates of origin, traceability, functional banking relationships with European and Asian correspondents, the presence of an active business diaspora between Moscow and Tbilisi: these are assets that do not appear in export statistics but that structure the operational feasibility of a commercial project.
What the 2025 Harvest Changes for Russian Buyers
The Russian premium wine market has gone through several years of restructuring since 2022. Historical supply chains were disrupted, references disappeared from shelves, and institutional buyers (high-end restaurants, specialist importers) are actively seeking to rebuild coherent portfolios. The demand exists. What is often missing is the structuring of supply: identified producers, documented quality, reliable logistics, justified pricing.
The 2025 Georgian harvest, the largest in thirty years volumetrically, arrives at precisely the right moment. It creates stock availability that Georgian producers and negociants will seek to valorise. For a sophisticated Russian buyer, this means sourcing opportunities on references with good value for money in the upper-mid segment, with already-proven logistics.
But Georgia is not solely a direct supplier. Its hub position also allows commercial relationships to be structured there with third-party producers who have established a presence or distribution agreements. It is this dual dimension (producer and platform) that makes it a strategically important territory in the fullest sense.
AknoTrade Perspective
For AknoTrade, Georgia represents both a concrete sourcing ground and an operational framework for structuring access to the Russian market in a compliant and sustainable way.
On sourcing, the premiumisation visible in the 2025 figures (rising average price, premium markets progressing) aligns with our positioning: we are not looking for volume, we are looking for defensible references in a demanding market. Georgian grape varieties (Saperavi above all) have a strong identity and growing recognition among Russian connoisseurs, with a long shared history.
Operationally, Georgia allows compliant, transparent and auditable commercial chains to be built, which the Russian premium market now requires from its serious suppliers.
The point is not to circumvent anything. It is to recognise that a mature commercial hub, with infrastructure, professional operators and a solid regulatory framework, is precisely what an outsourced commercial directorate needs to work cleanly in a complex market. Georgia 2025 checks those boxes. That is why we are watching it closely.