Georgian Wine and Qvevri: How an Ancient Clay-Vessel Tradition Survives

Walk into a traditional Georgian wine cellar and the most important equipment is easy to miss. The vessels are buried to the neck in the floor, so all you see are round clay mouths, often ringed with brick and capped with a lid of stone or wood. This is the heart of Georgian wine and qvevri: an egg-shaped clay jar in which grapes have been turned into wine, underground, for thousands of years. On Odyssey Traveller’s Small Group Tour to the Caucasus | Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia, the days in Kakheti include lunch at a local Georgian wine cellar, and this article explains what you are looking at when you are standing in one, as one thread of the wider 22-day Caucasus itinerary.

Georgian wine and qvevri: how the vessel works

A qvevri is an egg-shaped earthenware vessel used to make, age and store wine, all in the one container. It is set into the ground so that only the opening sits at floor level, and the surrounding earth keeps the temperature steady through fermentation without any machinery. Qvevri range in size from a few dozen litres, enough for a household’s own wine, to vessels that hold several thousand, and the inside is traditionally coated with beeswax to seal the porous clay.

The method is simple to describe and slow to carry out. Freshly picked grapes are crushed, traditionally by foot in a wooden trough, and the juice goes into the qvevri together with the skins, stalks and seeds. In the early days of fermentation the floating cap of solids, known as mezga, is pushed back down into the liquid so that its colour and tannin are drawn out. Once fermentation settles, the vessel is sealed with a stone or wooden lid and a layer of clay, and the wine is left to rest until spring. UNESCO puts the whole process at five to six months before the wine is drunk, and only then is it drawn off the solids.

In 2013 UNESCO added the method to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. What the listing recognises is not a building or an object but a body of knowledge passed between families, neighbours and friends: how to gather the clay, how to build and fire the vessel, how to tend the vines and press the grapes. Archaeologists working at Neolithic sites in Georgia have found traces of wine in clay jars dating to around 6000 BC, and the tradition is often described as some eight thousand years old, though the vessels and the methods have certainly changed along the way.

What does qvevri wine taste like?

Amber qvevri wine is dry and textured, closer in structure to a light red than to a crisp white, and it often takes a glass or two to settle into. The colour and grip come from months of contact with the grape skins, which is also why it is at its best with food rather than sipped on its own. Qvevri reds, such as those made from Saperavi, are typically deep, dark and firmly tannic.

That long skin contact is the Kakhetian method, named for the eastern region the tour visits. In Imereti, in the west, winemakers have traditionally left far less of the skins in the vessel, and the wines come out paler and lighter from the same kind of jar. Georgian wine is not one style but several, before you even count the grape varieties, which our guide to the Kakheti wine region introduces.

The craft before the wine: how a qvevri is made

Before a qvevri can make wine it has to be built, and that is a craft in its own right. The vessel is shaped by hand from a particular clay, built up ring by ring, dried slowly, fired, and finally lined with beeswax. Large vessels are a serious undertaking, and a well-made qvevri can serve a family for generations.

Once, many Georgian villages specialised in the work. Today production is concentrated in a handful of places across Kakheti, Imereti and Guria, and growing interest in qvevri wine, at home and abroad, has kept the remaining workshops busy. In Kakheti, the village of Vardisubani is one of the names associated with the craft.

The tour touches the same clay tradition from a different angle. On day 16, between Batumi and Tbilisi, the group stops at the monastery of Ubisa and is then hosted by a pottery maker’s family in the village of Shrosha. The tour page describes this as a pottery experience rather than a qvevri workshop, so it is best treated as a look at Georgian clay craft in general, but it is the closest the itinerary comes to the hands that make these vessels.

The marani: why the cellar matters as much as the wine

In Georgia the cellar is called the marani, and it is more than a place to keep bottles. UNESCO notes that the wine cellar is still regarded as the holiest place in the family home, and that wine runs through daily life, religious festivals, celebrations, songs and oral tradition. For a family with qvevri in the floor, the marani is where the year’s work ends up, and the wine in it is served to guests as a matter of course.

That helps explain how the tradition survived the twentieth century. In the Soviet decades, commercial wine production moved towards industrial methods, but households carried on making wine the old way for their own tables, and the knowledge stayed in families rather than institutions. It is also why a meal in a Georgian cellar tends to feel less like a tasting and more like hospitality. Our overview, Discovering Georgia, includes a section on eating, drinking and hospitality that sets the wider scene, and the toast-led feast known as the supra is part of it.

Seeing qvevri on the Caucasus itinerary

The Kakheti leg of the tour is short and full, so it helps to know what to look for. Day 5 crosses from Azerbaijan into Georgia and ends in Telavi, where the group learns about local bread baking and the making of churchkhela, a chewy sweet made by dipping strings of walnuts in thickened grape juice. Day 6 takes in the citadel at Gremi and the walled town of Sighnaghi, with lunch at a local Georgian wine cellar before the drive on to Tbilisi. We describe the route stop by stop in our Kakheti wine region guide; this article is about the vessel and the tradition behind what ends up in your glass.

Will the tour show me how qvevri wine is made?

The itinerary includes lunch at a local Georgian wine cellar on day 6, but it does not promise a qvevri demonstration, so it is best not to expect one. Family cellars in Kakheti are traditionally built around buried qvevri, which makes a cellar a natural place to see them, and your Odyssey Program Leader and local guide can explain what you are looking at. If seeing the process matters to you, ask a Tour Specialist before you book.

Are Georgian wine cellars difficult to visit if stairs are a problem?

They can be, because traditional cellars are often below ground or reached by steps, so mention any mobility concerns to Odyssey before you book rather than on the day. The Caucasus tour is rated Level 2 (Moderate), which means being able to climb and descend stairs and take part in three to five hours of physical activity a day, the equivalent of walking up to eight kilometres on uneven ground. For a fuller picture of pace, see our guide to what the 22-day Caucasus journey involves.

When is the best time to see qvevri being used?

The harvest, known in Georgia as rtveli, is when qvevri are filled with crushed grapes, and in Kakheti it typically runs from September into October depending on the year. Odyssey’s October departure travels closer to that season than the May departure, though the tour does not promise a harvest experience and the timing shifts with the weather. In spring, the wine that has rested in the ground since autumn is traditionally opened, which makes May a good month to taste the finished result.

Food that suits amber wine

Qvevri wine was made to be drunk with food, and the Georgian table is built around it. The tannin and texture of amber wine tend to suit the cheeses, breads and walnut-rich dishes that fill a supra: long boat-shaped loaves of bread, cheese-filled khachapuri, vegetable pastes dressed with walnuts, and grilled meats. The itinerary gives several chances to meet these dishes in context. On day 12 a local family in Ushguli hosts a tasting of sulguni, the region’s brined cheese, and on day 15 lunch in Batumi features khachapuri. The tour also includes a farewell dinner in each country, sampling its national cuisine and music.

How the three countries’ tables compare is the subject of our article on Caucasian food across Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia. Armenia has its own answer to the Georgian cellar near the end of the route: day 19 in Yerevan includes a brandy factory visit, which we cover in our piece on Armenian brandy.

Do I need to drink wine to enjoy a cellar visit?

No. You can enjoy the cellar, the food and the conversation around the table without drinking, and it is fine to say so early. Let Odyssey know about any dietary requirements or allergies when you book, as the tour page asks, and mention your preferences to your Program Leader on the day.

Seeing the tradition for yourself

A qvevri is easy to overlook: a round mouth in a cellar floor, a stone lid, a few bricks. What it represents is a way of making wine that has stayed close to the household for a very long time, and that is now being looked at again by winemakers well beyond Georgia. For travellers who prefer to understand a wine culture rather than simply taste it, the Kakheti days on Odyssey’s Small Group Tour to the Caucasus | Armenia Azerbaijan Georgia offer a good place to begin, in a group of no more than fourteen with a Program Leader and local guides throughout. For broader questions about travelling in Georgia, our Questions About Georgia guide is the place to start.