Georgia has opened a secret wine collection that once belonged to Joseph Stalin to visitors for the first time. The cellar in Tbilisi stores nearly 40,000 rare French and Georgian wines, some of which are more than 200 years old, Reuters reported.
The collection includes bottles from famous Bordeaux estates that once belonged to Russian Tsar Alexander III and his son Nicholas II. After the October Revolution in 1917, the Soviet authorities confiscated the imperial wines, and later Stalin began to expand the collection with his favorite Georgian varieties.
Georgian authorities plan to sell some of the rare bottles at auction, and the funds will be used to create a wine school.
The owner of Gilauri Wines, Irakli Gilauri, is also working on the project. He said the auction could establish Georgia as a major destination for collectors of rare wines.
The Caucasus country is often referred to as the birthplace of wine. Archaeological finds show that the tradition of winemaking there dates back more than 8,000 years.
Among the visitors to the cellar was collector Victor Chen of Dallas, Texas, who described the experience as “a true archaeological discovery.”
“I feel like Indiana Jones opening a cave – there might be nothing there, but there might be treasure,” he said.
“There are almost no objects left these days that have the feeling of a historical moment. And this could be one of them,” Chen added.
Illustrative photo: pexels-hunt-on-photos-studio-5305675-6138585
