Rice and Poles drink to shield with Georgian wine

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice listens to the English translation of a reporter's question during a joint news conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari (not in the picture) in the heavy fortified Green Zone in Baghdad August 21, 2008.

WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski celebrated the signing of a missile shield deal this week with Georgian wine, a choice sure to leave a bitter taste for Russia.

Moscow, embroiled in a row with the West over its military incursion into the tiny ex-Soviet republic of Georgia, is fiercely opposed to the missile shield, saying it poses a direct threat to its own security.

Poland says the choice of Georgian 2005 Kakhetian Royal wine to complement Polish pike-perch at a dinner hosted by Sikorski was not meant as a slight to Russia.

"(Rice) smiled and, if I remember correctly, said she had had a chance to deal with Georgia and its politicians, but had not tasted its wine," the Polish newspaper Dziennik quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Ryszard Schnepf as saying.

Poland agreed to host elements of the planned U.S. missile shield a few days after Russia launched its offensive into Georgia in response to Tbilisi's attempt to reclaim the breakaway, Moscow-backed province of South Ossetia.

The United States says the shield is not directed against Russia but is intended to protect its European allies against possible attack by what it calls "rogue states", particularly Iran, or by terrorist groups.

Relations have been cool between NATO member Poland and Russia, its Soviet-era overlord, and Warsaw has been one of the loudest critics of Moscow's military operation in Georgia. President Lech Kaczynski flew to Tbilisi to illustrate Poland's solidarity with Georgia.

(Reporting by Chris Borowski; editing by Gareth Jones)