Georgia

Georgia has the oldest archaeological evidence of winemaking anywhere: tartaric acid residue in Neolithic jars from around 6000 BC, in the south of the country. That is roughly two thousand years before the earliest evidence in Iran or Armenia, and four thousand before Greece. Winemaking here has been continuous ever since, through Persian, Ottoman, Russian and Soviet rule.

The method that survived is the qvevri: a large egg-shaped clay vessel, lined with beeswax and buried to the neck in the ground, in which grapes ferment and then age on their skins. For white grapes this produces what the modern trade calls orange wine, an amber, tannic, oxidatively handled white. Georgia did not adopt the style; it never stopped. UNESCO listed the qvevri method as intangible cultural heritage in 2013.

Saperavi is the main red grape and is one of the few varieties in the world with red flesh as well as red skin, which is why the wine is almost opaque. Rkatsiteli is the main white, and grows across the former Soviet republics. The country holds an unusually deep genetic reserve: over 500 native varieties are recorded, of which a few dozen are in commercial use.

Kakheti in the east makes about three quarters of the wine. The domestic and Russian markets take most production, and much of what is exported to western Europe and North America is the qvevri style, which is a small fraction of what Georgia actually drinks. Everyday Georgian wine is made in stainless steel like anywhere else.