IT WAS surely a gesture intended to leave a sour taste in Russian mouths.

When Poland defied dire Kremlin warnings by agreeing this month to host a US missile defence base, officials from Warsaw and Washington toasted the deal with wine from Georgia - the country largely occupied at the time by Moscow's troops.

Poland's choice of celebratory tipple must have raised a smile among the beleaguered winegrowers of Kakheti, a patchwork of lush fields spread out beneath the Caucasus mountains, where people well know the price of enmity with Russia.

This region suffered badly following Moscow's 2006 ban on the import of Georgian produce, when Russian scientists claimed to have found dangerously high levels of pesticides and other chemicals in the country's fruit, vegetables, mineral water and wine. The embargo was clearly political.

Georgia was blocking Russia's entry to the World Trade Organisation and pushing for closer ties with Nato and the EU, and much of the poor quality "Georgian" wine and mineral water reaching Russian shelves at the time was made in Russia by local counterfeiters.

The Kremlin failed to stop their activity while abruptly depriving the Tbilisi government of its biggest export market.

For Kakheti - home of winemaking in a nation that claims to have invented the art - the embargo could have spelled disaster.

Last year, Georgia sold 11 million bottles of wine in about 40 countries, less than it sold in Russia alone before the ban was imposed.

Total wine sales abroad in 2007 were down by about nine million bottles, forcing many vineyards to sell land, buildings and equipment to survive.

"It was a tough period, but in some ways it actually helped us," said Zurab Ramazashvili, chairman of the Telavi Wine Cellar, which takes its name from Kakheti's main town.

"We had to focus on increasing sales in the old Soviet Union and in the rest of the world.

"So now we are seeing good results in Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Baltic states, where people are familiar with our wines, and in the United States and bigger EU countries where we represent something new and interesting."

In a Soviet Union that stretched from Baltic to Pacific, from the Arctic to Central Asia, Georgia was widely regarded as the republic with the finest food and wine.

Blessed with a Mediterranean climate and fanned by breezes from the Black Sea and the Caucasus, Georgia produces magnificent fruit and vegetables that form the basis of a cuisine which combines elements of southern European and Middle-Eastern cooking.

Georgians are hugely proud of unique grape varieties like the white Mtsvane and Rkatsiteli and reds like Saperavi, and a winemaking history which they claim dates back to at least 3,000 BC, based on the discovery of ancient clay vessels containing grape seeds and a figurine of a man who appears to be lifting a wine-filled goat's horn to his lips.

"In the Soviet period, winemaking was about quantity, not quality, but we still managed to make some good wines. Now we are adjusting our wines to cater to European and American tastes," said Jemal Inaishvili, president of the Georgian Chamber of Commerce.

"We cannot compete on volume with the French or Italian wines, but we want to introduce a very good, unique product to the world market. And of course we would like to return to our old Russian market as well - when the Kremlin forced us out it didn't consider how badly Russians would miss Georgian wines, mineral water and other products."

Before Russian tanks drove Georgian forces out of South Ossetia and roamed around other parts of Tbilisi's territory, local businessmen saw signs of the embargo being lifted.

That now seems impossible, as Russia casts doubt on the future of pro-western president Mikheil Saakashvili and the country's economic boom, which has attracted major foreign investment and fuelled annual growth of around 10 per cent.

"We call Georgia the 'Cradle of Wine', because we have been making and drinking it here for millennia," said Inaishvili.

"Whatever the Russians do, we will still offer our national drink to the world." And as EU states unite to condemn Moscow's actions in Georgia, its winemakers may find that being Russia's number one enemy is not all bad for business - especially in eastern Europe, where many people are still hostile towards their Soviet-era masters.

"The Russian occupation of Georgia has hit the Georgian economy. Besides humanitarian aid, another way to help is to buy Georgian products," said Michal Strozyk as he offered glasses of Georgian wine and mineral water to passers-by in central Warsaw.

Playing on local dislike of hawkish Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin, Strozyk's organisation, Solidarity with Georgia, even has a slogan encouraging Poles to raise a defiant glass towards Moscow.