Georgia on My Mind: Try an 8,000-Year-Old Wine

Want to try 8,000-year-old wine? Then check out Georgia, a nation about the size of Ningxia or double Hainan, with 500-plus grape varieties, and a living wine history like no other.

Georgia on the map

For 300 to 400 generations, Georgians have put grape must -- juice plus skins, seeds and stems -- into clay jars buried in the ground, often right up to the rim. These jars -- most are known as qvevri -- serve as miniature wineries where fermentation, maturation and storage all take place.

Qvevri. Image source：winesgeorgia.com

And qvevri can range in size from about 100 liters to thousands of liters -- big enough for someone to crawl inside to scrub and prepare for the next batch of wine. Over and over and over again.

Qvevri buried up to the rim. 

Image source: winesgeorgia.com

Qvervi

UNESCO has included the qvervi method of making wine on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This is no doubt a source of pride in a country with a famous statue known as 'Mother of Georgia' that carries a sword in one hand and a wine cup in the other. Perhaps we can think of wine meaning as much to Georgians as baijiu does to Chinese.

Mother of Georgia 

Imgage source: foursquare.com

Of course, Georgian winemakers are also well aware of modern techniques. Some make wine using more recent inventions, such as steel tanks and oak barrels. Others have gone beyond local grapes and planted foreign varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Which simply means that when it comes to Georgian wine, there is a wide range of choice.

GIF source: giphy.com

Here in China, we can also find quite a bit of Georgian wine, with 7 million bottles imported in 2019 alone. That includes at CHEERS, which carries a semi-sweet red made by Lali.

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This blend features Georgia's most famous grape, Saperavi, a grape -- fun fact -- that is also planted in small amounts in Chinese vineyards. Expect a wine that is sweet but not cloying, and smooth with red fruit and light tannins. A nice way to ease into the Year of the Ox.

Original by Jim Boyce, Grape Wall of China 葡萄围城

Tap here to learn more about grapes and wine-drinking.

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