The last time I tasted the Khareba wines, I was standing in the winery's chilly cellars in the Alazani Valley on a boiling hot August afternoon. The winery and its almost 8 kilometers (five miles) of tunnels are carved into the Caucasus Mountains, like a bunker. I appreciated the inadvertent symbolism, as Russian troops just over the Georgian border recently had been seen patrolling. However, deep in the earth, the wines were cool and safe.

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