In a previous post, I had linked to a CNN report about the revival of Georgia's unique kvevri wine, which is wine that is fermented in large clay vessels that are buried underground. A recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald, meanwhile, has a report from the field with more information about the wine and some of the efforts being made to revive it and create a tourism industry around Georgian wine.
From the article:
Historians believe wine has been made in the Kakheti Valley
- a belly of fertile plains enclosed by the snow-capped Greater Caucasus
Mountains - for more than 8000 years. Grapes were fermented in clay amphoras
called qvevris, which were glazed with beeswax and buried up to their necks.Until 2006, nine of every 10 bottles of wine produced in
Georgia went to Russia. Most of that was cheap and grisly, aimed at sustaining
less-than-discriminating palates. But then the Kremlin placed embargoes on both
Georgian wine and the magically curative Borjomi mineral water, claiming they
were riddled with pesticides (although critics claim it was punishment for
Saakashvili's pro-Western policies).Faced with bankruptcy, Georgia's wine industry worked hard
to reinvent itself. A coterie of energetic winemakers came to the fore and the
ancient art of qvevri fermentation was revived.My first sip of a qvevri wine is in the dungeon-like cellars
of Pheasant's Tears, a boutique winery run by John Wurdeman in the town of
Sighnaghi. The wine, made from local rkatsiteli grapes, is unlike anything I
have ever tasted. It looks and smells like sherry but is smooth and dry with
accents of roast almond and dried apricot. I'm told it's low in sulphates, so I
can drink to my heart's content and not suffer the consequences the next day.
You can read the full article here.
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