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Kitka Presents: Supra Club! at the Punchdown

  • The Punch Down - A Natural Wine Bar, Kitchen and Bottle Shop 1737 Broadway Oakland, CA 94612 (map)

A Georgian ritual feast meets the modern California supper club!

Join us for an evening of Georgian-Californian fusion cuisine prepared by Port and Provisions' Chef David Johnson, natural wine pairings by Pheasant's Tears and The Punchdown, and uplifting toasts and soulful table songs by Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble joined by special guest Georgian song master Ketevan Mindorashvili.

Advance pre-paid reservations required. This will be an intimate affair limited to 35 guests. Admission ($90-$150 per person) includes food, wine, song, taxes, and gratuities for our service staff.

The SUPRA, translated "tablecloth", is a traditional Georgian ritual feast combining delicious food, inspiring toasts, evocative wine, gorgeous music, and exceptional hospitality. 

Situated along ancient trade routes, Georgian cuisine has absorbed culinary influences from such wide-ranging places as Iran, China, the Steppes, and the Mediterranean, making it a unique and rich culinary culture. Guests will gather around communal tables where we will present a series of scrumptious dishes and libations combining traditional Georgian recipes with local California seasonal abundance. 

Throughout the family-style feasting, Kitka Women's Vocal Ensemble, joined by Ketevan Mindorashvili, our special guest song master from Georgia, will present poetic toasts amplified by traditional polyphonic songs from Georgia and beyond. Our guests should expect a one-of-a-kind musical-culinary experience elevated by delicious organic wine-pairings provided by the sommeliers of Oakland's Punchdown Natural Wine Bar. 

To see a sample SUPRA CLUB menu, visit: https://www.portandprovisions.com/supra-club/

OUR SUPRA'S CREATIVE TEAM

Dedicated to building local and global community through the practice of harmony singing, KITKA is an Oakland-based women's vocal arts ensemble inspired by collective singing traditions of Balkan, Slavic, and Caucasian lands. Now celebrating its 40th Anniversary season, Kitka has earned international recognition for its ravishing sound and innovative programming. Kitkas commitment to presenting traditional song as a living and evolving expressive art form has led to adventurous collaborations with some of the worlds most exciting indigenous musicians and contemporary composers and performance artists ranging from Le Mystères des Voix Bulgares to Meredith Monk. The ensemble's wide-ranging performance, teaching, and recording activities have exposed millions to the haunting beauty of their unique repertoire.

Special guest song master KETEVAN MINDORASHVILI is the Director of Georgia's acclaimed Zedashe Ensemble. Ketevan was born in Sighnaghi and raised in a traditional singing family. "Keto" showed a gift for singing since childhood and continued to study music technique extensively in university. She devoted herself to preserving traditions on the brink of disappearance, and has become known as a singer and a teacher of Georgian folk music, particularly the fluid ornamentation of eastern folk songs. She has a deep knowledge of ancient church chant, and is a master of the panduri, the three-stringed lute from the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti. Keto has searched valleys and mountains for ancient polyphony, collecting folk songs and chants, as well as writing her own music within the tradition. Today she hosts students from all over the world in her native Sighnaghi and travels internationally leading tours of Zedashe and teaching workshops. 

SUPRA CLUB, a monthly Georgian Supra-inspired supper club in Sausalito's creative houseboat community is the brainchild of wife-husband duo Kristine Barrett and David Johnson (aka Chef DR Jones). 

KRISTINE BARRETT is a Kitka vocalist and independent artist specializing in traditional music from the British Isles, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. Kristine first fell in love with Georgian polyphony in 2009; going on to study Georgian music more intensively with American scholar-singer Carl Linich, the Georgian State Ensemble Basiani, Svan master Islam Pilpani, and Georgian scholar-singer David Shugliashvili. Kristine is the founder and director of Kitka's Georgian Community Choir and the Headlands Community Folk Ensemble.

Chef DAVID ROBERT JOHNSON (a.k.a. Chef DR Jones) is the founder of Port & Provisions, a creative and collaborative event company; combining food, wine, sustainable practices, travel, maritime culture (He spent ten years cooking on historic tall ships, seasonally and geographically sourcing food; and expanding his culinary repertoire via cooking with locals, exchanging recipes, and experimenting with whatever was in season), and the arts with community development and enrichment. Born in Iowa, David's grandfather, a farmer, first introduced him to growing food, canning, and preserving, and the intimacy of eating locally. He received a BS in Geography & Environmental Management from the University of Iowa, specifically studying the interrelationships between the health of society, economy, and environment with special respect to food production systems. David is the owner of Davey Jones Deli in Sausalito, which was awarded Best Vegetarian in Marin by Marin Magazine, Top 10 in Marin over 10 years by KQED Check Please, Small Business of the Year by the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce, and a variety of other accolades.

THE PUNCHDOWN is Oakland's natural wine bar. While there is no legal regulation or certification for "natural wine," The Punchdown's criteria are clear. 

-The Punchdown's wines are grown in a sustainable, organic, or biodynamic manner by real farmers. No chemicals in the vineyard. Cover crops are present creating a healthy and balanced ecosystem with good pests to combat the bad pests. They look for low yields and hand harvested and sorted fruit. 

-Natural yeast! The Punchdown insists on wines that are made with yeast that is naturally occurring on the grapes and in the cellar. 

-Minimal intervention in the wine-making process. None of the usual chemical additions to change the flavor, aroma, structure, color, texture, etc. Adding sulfur dioxide only when necessary in small amounts, and preferably only at bottling or even better never!

-The Punchdown's producers make wines that have an interesting story and distinctive taste, reflecting a sense of place called terroir. Making wine naturally may entail a "hands-off" approach, but it is certainly not the easy way to do it. Often, making good wines naturally requires a fair amount of risk and experimentation. The Punchdown's selection tends to be wines made in small amounts by real people - not corporations - that do it for love, rather than profit. Some of them are breaking the rules, regulations, and laws of their respective regions by choosing to make wine in this natural way. We regard them as heroes in an enormous and competitive industry that increasingly manufactures wine as though it is a soft drink. 

We look forward to delighting your senses and lifting your spirits! Gaumarjos!