About Us

Photo: Vaso Gabunia

Oda House

Built in 1933 by Parten Gagua and Olgha Gegia, our Oda, a traditional style of western Georgian wooden house, is one of Martvili's oldest. In 2016, their great-grandson, Zaza Gagua, moved back to his great-grandparents' Oda, along with his wife Keto and two daughters.

At that time, everyone in Samegrelo was oriented towards hazelnut plantations, and locals generally regarded the planting of vineyards quite skeptically. At precisely this moment, Zaza and Keto replaced the existing hazelnut plantation in their yard with vines, buried new kvevri in both open and walled maranis, and began fermenting organically-grown Ojaleshi purchased from several family vineyards in these new kvevri. Keto was the main initiator of this small family winery.

"Oda" Wines soon became popular both in local and international media, and introduced Megrelian Ojaleshi to those countries that are cultural centers of wine production. The marani increases its production by a small quantity each year, and currently produces 6000 bottles annually, which are distributed across 4 continents in 12 countries (USA, Canada, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands, France, Portugal, Israel, Japan, Australia).

Oda was the first winery to become involved in wine tourism in Samegrelo, providing incentive for other small wineries in the region. Currently our winery is Samegrelo's eno- and gastro-tourism's main destination.

We consistently pursue a path of renewable and organic agriculture. We pay great attention to the economization of resources, sustainable soil treatment, and preserving the local ecosystems and biodiversity. In 2016-2018, with the help of the vine nursery in Jighaura, we planted a small vineyard on Oda's home plot, which is a collection of old Megrelian and Abkhazian endemic grape varieties - Chvitiluri, Koloshi, Dudghushi, Lakvazhi, and Ashugazhi.

Photo: Erekle Sologhashvili

Keto Ninidze

Keto is a journalist and wine writer. After completing university, over the course of ten years, she was a researcher for the Institute of Georgian Literature, and worked on her doctoral thesis at Ilia's University.

In 2015, Keto became the supervisor of the Wine Information Center, and began writing about wine. She soon decided to develop her own personal experimental project - a limited quantity of the local grape variety Ojaleshi - fermented in an untraditional way. The popularity of this "Naked Ojaleshi" was encouraging, and Keto decided to pursue winemaking seriously. She studied in Georgia's Wine School, with practical experience in Germany at one of Rheinhessen's organic wineries, and in Bavaria's Vineyard Research Center.

Today, in addition to managing the vineyards and winery, Keto continues writing, both about wine, and literature criticism. She is the author and co-author of books on literature (The Morphology of the Military Narrative, Georgian Writing of the Liberalism Period, Georgian Romanticism) and on wine (A Gently Fermenting Revolution: Women in Georgian Wine Business).

In 2018, the Georgian Agricultural Ministry and the Georgian Farmers' Association declared Keto Ninidze the Woman Farmer of the Year.

Zaza Gagua

Zaza and his friends founded the small winery "Vino Martville" (now Martvili's Marani) in 2012, which brought life back to the neglected Tekhura hillside in Targameuli village, which is part of Martvili municipality, and gave new life to Samegrelo's winemaking tradition.

Zaza is a geographer by profession. He maintains both Martvili's Canyon and Samegrelo's Protected Regions. Out of love for his profession, he has traveled by foot not only throughout Samegrelo, but through nearly every nook and cranny of Georgia. Naturally, he was always most interested by the nature of his own region - by the waterfalls of Samegrelo, the canyons, the caves, the Colchian forests, and by the local ecobiodiversity. In 2010, he completed his master's degree inspired by Samegrelo's nature at Ilia State University, after which an expedition of Ilia University's professors and master's students was developed to study Martvili's natural and touristic resources. The group of researchers was based in Zaza's family's Oda. The result of the expedition was the popularization of Martvili Canyon, and a new chapter in our family's story.