Abroad, if only I can, I inspect the assortment of wines. Not primarily in the wine shops, but rather in the supermarkets which better show how the people passes time (Petőfi).
In Azerbaijan, as expected, mainly the Georgian wines dominate the shelves: Khvanchkara, Kindzmarauli, Pirosmani, the classical varieties and reliable quality known from the times of the empire, although I find their taste not particularly complex.
Among the wines of Azerbaijan the Yeddi Gözəl, that is the Seven Beauties is considered the best, although on the basis of its label you would not vote much confidence to it, neither to the one called Qız Qalası, that is Maiden’s Tower after one of Baku’s main architectural monuments, whose label is just hanging on the right in the picture below.
The wines of the winery of Ganja (in Azeri Gənjə, birth town of the 12th-century poet Nizami, author of the Seven Beauties) are made much more reassuring by the classical labels and varieties as well as by the fact that they do not include any semi-sweet sort which always gives food for suspicion in the case of the wines of the former empire
A special group among the Azerbaijani wines are the ones named after the legendary Turkic heroes: Koroğlu, hero of the first Turkic epic poem, Attila, king of the Huns and Sheikh Ismail, unifier and Shah of Iran and founder of the Safavid dynasty, who was also one of the most significant early Azerbaijani poets. Since these wines are to be found on the lowest shelf, there are concerns that the heroes do not refer to the result of their consumption but to the courage necessary to it.
However, as my host is Muslim, therefore I have not yet tasted any local wine. I will take to Wang Wei an elegant Shiraz from Ganja. Since the wineyards praised by Omar Khayyam have been wiped out in the Iranian Shiraz, this is the nearest region where a wine is produced under that name.
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