Wine Beyond Borders

Get to know emerging global winemakers with Go There Wines.

- Oset Babür-Winter

IT'S ONE THING TO OPEN A RESTAURANT that nails a perfectly cheesy, crispy khachapuri, or to train a team capable of coaxing a stubborn Napa Cab-head into ordering a bottle of Georgian rosé. It's an entirely different thing to build a business that supports small wine producers from Syria, Lebanon, and Georgia by assuming much of the necessary financial and logistical risk tied to bringing their wines to an American audience.

"Small winemakers just need cold, hard cash up front for the nature of the work," explains Rose Previte. Previte, owner of restaurants Maydan and Compass Rose in Washington, D.C., is also a cofounder of Go There Wines, a new kind of wine venture that coproduces vintages with small winemakers in countries that aren't typically represented in bottle-shop aisles and on restaurant menus.