Georgian Wine

Qvevri wine is made in a large egg-shaped clay vessel buried in the ground. Grapes ferment and age inside it, often on their skins, using the naturally stable underground temperature. The method is roughly 8,000 years old and is recognized by UNESCO as part of Georgia's cultural heritage. It is the original way to make skin-contact and amber wine.

Because the white grapes are fermented on their skins, seeds, and sometimes stems for weeks or months, the same way red wine is made. That extended skin contact draws out color, tannin, and flavor, turning the wine deep gold to amber and giving it structure and grip most white wines lack.

Georgia has more than 500 indigenous varieties. The most important are Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane for amber whites, and Saperavi for red. Saperavi is a teinturier grape, meaning its flesh is red as well as its skin, which is why it makes such deeply colored, ageworthy wine.

Qvevri wine is low-intervention by design: native-yeast fermentation, minimal additions, and little or no added sulfur, typically from organically farmed fruit. This is how Georgian families have made wine at home for millennia, so the tradition and the natural wine philosophy line up almost exactly.

Saperavi is dark, dry, and savory, with black fruit, dried herbs, and a firm acid and tannin backbone. It can be brooding and structured in youth and ages very well. It is a natural match for grilled and roasted meats.

Serve amber wines cool but not cold, around 55 degrees, and give them air to open up. Their tannin and savor pair with roast meats, walnut-rich Georgian dishes, aged cheese, and grilled vegetables. Treat them more like a light red than a white at the table.