Eight thousand years ago, in the South Caucasus, people were already making wine from grapes in clay.
Where was wine invented?
In Georgia. Residues of grape wine were found in eight clay jars at Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, two Neolithic villages south of Tbilisi. The oldest of the eight dates to about 5980 BC, and the study places the wine at c. 6000–5800 BC: the oldest evidence of grape winemaking yet found anywhere.
Our name comes from the oldest of those jars: about 5980 BC.
How we know
- c. 5980 BC Neolithic villagers at Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, south of Tbilisi, make wine from grapes in large clay jars. The oldest jar later found to have held wine dates to about 5980 BC.
- 2012–2016 Renewed excavations at both villages recover fragments of those jars, some decorated with clusters of grapes.
- 2013 UNESCO adds traditional Georgian qvevri winemaking to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
- November 2017 An international team led by the molecular archaeologist Patrick McGovern publishes its analysis in PNAS. Tartaric acid, the chemical fingerprint of grapes, is found in eight jars, dating winemaking in Georgia to c. 6000–5800 BC and pushing the previous record, from the Zagros Mountains of Iran (c. 5400–5000 BC), back by 600 to 1,000 years.
The qvevri
Georgians still make wine in clay. A qvevri (also spelt kvevri) is a large, egg-shaped clay vessel, lined with beeswax and buried up to its neck in the ground, where the wine ferments and ages. Traditional Georgian qvevri winemaking is on UNESCO's list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In a marani, the Georgian wine cellar, all you see of the qvevri is a row of round openings set into the floor. Both our wines are made this way: our amber Rkatsiteli Mtsvane and our Saperavi.
Kakheti
Our wines come from Kakheti, in the east of the country, Georgia's principal wine region. The vineyards lie at Kardenakhi and Bakurtsikhe, and every grape is an indigenous Georgian variety. How our wines are made.
Questions
How old is wine?
About eight thousand years. The earliest chemical evidence of wine made from grapes comes from Neolithic villages in Georgia, dated to c. 6000–5800 BC, with the oldest jar dating to about 5980 BC: thousands of years before wine reached Egypt, Greece or Rome.
Was wine invented in Georgia or Iran?
Georgia. Until 2017 the oldest known grape wine came from the Zagros Mountains of Iran, dated to c. 5400–5000 BC. The Georgian finds, published in PNAS in November 2017 and dated to c. 6000–5800 BC, pushed the start of winemaking back by 600 to 1,000 years.
What does 5980bc mean?
We are named after the oldest of the eight Neolithic jars found to have held grape wine in Georgia, dated to about 5980 BC: the earliest evidence of winemaking yet found. Every bottle is a toast to where wine was born.
Sources
- Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(48), E10309–E10318, 13 November 2017.
- 'World's oldest wine' found in 8,000-year-old jars in Georgia. BBC News, 13 November 2017.
- Archaeologists find earliest evidence of winemaking. University of Toronto, 13 November 2017.
- Oldest wine. Guinness World Records.