What started as a winemaker’s collectively owned bar has transformed into a wine lover’s collectively owned bar.

Kristian Brask Thomsen, AKA the Ambassador of Pleasure, is a professional gourmand, a guy who figured out how to make a living eating good food and drinking good wine. His PR firm represents Michelin star chefs and restaurants I’ll never be able to afford. This ought to make him a food snob but he’s no snoot and is especially down to earth; so much so in fact that he rates Veliaminov as one of his favorite restaurants in Georgia.

“Hey, American! Modi, modi!” Shalva beckoned with the back of his hand. The retired gas man was sitting in his cage above his garage with his posse from the hood. “Dajiki, dajiki!” He ordered, pointing to a little stool at a table decorated with a newspaper table cloth, bread and cheese. I had just come up from the market with some essentials. It wasn’t quite noon. Shalva grabbed a lip-marked water glass, flung the remains to the floor and filled it with a cloudy amber from a two-liter Coke...