I’ve always been a wine-discovery junkie, constantly on the hunt for new grapes, new vintages, new winemakers, and especially new places where vines may never have been planted before. Thanks to ambitious vintners, rising demand from drinkers, a taste shift to lighter wine styles, and yes, even climate change, the number of global hot spots for wine is ever expanding. If you’re still rattling off the names of the old, long-famous regions, you’re way behind the times. In these eight spots, good wine is on its way to becoming great wine, with a few stars leading the way.

Republic of Georgia

This is the land of qvervi, the pot-bellied clay amphora lined with beeswax and buried in the earth that vintners have traditionally used for fermenting juice from nearly 500 indigenous varieties of grapes. The method and the country’s 8,000-year-old winemaking history have given its reds and whites countercultural appeal. The current wine revival was helped along by a seven-year Russian embargo that forced producers to improve and export. Among the 15 most important varietals, one red (saperavi) and two whites (rkatsiteli, mstvane) have the most global potential.