Wine in Georgia

Georgia is widely regarded as the cradle of wine — the place where people first turned grapes into something worth raising a glass to, some 8,000 years ago. And they are still doing it, in buried clay vessels, much as they always have.

Tucked between the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea, Georgia has a claim few wine countries can match: not just great wine, but the oldest continuous winemaking tradition in the world. For anyone whose curiosity about wine runs deeper than the usual grapes, Georgia is one of the most rewarding places to explore.

8,000 years of winemaking

The claim that Georgia is the birthplace of wine is not merely national pride. Archaeologists working at Neolithic sites south of Tbilisi found chemical traces of wine on pottery dating to roughly 6000 BC — about 8,000 years ago — in research published in the journal PNAS in 2017, which pushed the earliest known winemaking back several centuries and placed it firmly in Georgia. In 2013, UNESCO recognized Georgia's ancient clay-vessel winemaking method as part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

What's remarkable is how little the core of it has changed. The method behind that 8,000-year-old wine is, in its essentials, still in use today.

The qvevri method

At the heart of traditional Georgian wine is the qvevri (pronounced roughly "KWEV-ree") — a large, egg-shaped clay vessel, often big enough to hold hundreds of gallons, that is buried up to its neck in the ground. Grapes go in, and the stable underground temperature lets the wine ferment and age slowly and naturally.

For white wines, the Georgian approach is strikingly different from the Western one: the juice is left in contact with the grape skins, seeds, and sometimes stems for weeks or even months. That long contact is what gives traditional Georgian wine its character — and its color.

Amber wine, the original "orange" wine

That extended skin contact produces what Georgians call amber wine — a white wine made like a red, deep gold to orange in color, with real grip, tannin, and savory, nutty, dried-fruit flavors. It is the style the rest of the wine world has recently "discovered" and renamed orange wine, but in Georgia it is simply how white wine has been made for millennia.

Amber wine is Georgia's great gift to the modern table: food-friendly, unusual, and unlike almost anything else in a glass. For more on the style as it has spread beyond Georgia, see our guide to orange wine.

The grapes

Georgia is said to have more than 500 native grape varieties — a staggering number, most of them grown nowhere else. A handful do most of the work:

• Saperavi — the great Georgian red. Deeply colored (it's one of the rare grapes with red flesh, not just red skin), full-bodied, and age-worthy, with dark fruit and a savory edge.
• Rkatsiteli — the workhorse white, crisp and versatile, and the backbone of many amber wines.
• Mtsvane — an aromatic white, often blended with Rkatsiteli for freshness and floral lift.
• Kisi — a revived white variety prized for amber wines, with orchard fruit and a nutty depth.

Wine regions

Most Georgian wine comes from Kakheti, in the east — a sun-warmed region that accounts for the large majority of the country's production and is home to its most famous vineyards. Beyond it, Imereti in the center makes fresher, lighter wines with a slightly different skin-contact tradition; Kartli, near Tbilisi, is known for sparkling and crisp whites; and the small, high mountain region of Racha produces Khvanchkara, a celebrated naturally semi-sweet red.

Tasting Georgian wine

Georgian wine rewards an open mind. A traditional amber wine will not taste like a crisp Italian white — expect something closer in feel to a light red, with tannin and texture, best served only lightly chilled and alongside food. Saperavi, by contrast, will feel familiar to anyone who enjoys a bold, dark red.

And food is the point. Georgian wine was made to be drunk at the supra, the groaning feast at the center of Georgian life — amber wines stand up beautifully to walnut sauces, cheeses, and herbs, while Saperavi meets grilled meats head-on. For the dishes that go with it, see Food in Georgia.