Qvevri Wine: 8,000 Years of Georgian Funk

Georgia (the country, not the state) has been making wine for 8,000 years — longer than anywhere else on earth. And they've been doing it naturally the entire time.

The qvevri (pronounced KVEV-ree) is a large clay vessel, egg-shaped, lined with beeswax, and buried underground up to the neck. Grapes go in — skins, seeds, stems, and all. The vessel is sealed. The earth regulates temperature. Months later, wine comes out.

No temperature control. No yeast additions. No fining or filtering. No sulfites. Just grapes and clay and time. This is natural winemaking in its most ancient form.

The result is amber wine — white grapes that have spent months on their skins, extracting color, tannin, and extraordinary complexity. Georgian amber wines taste like nothing else: dried apricot, walnut, honey, tea, and a texture that coats your entire mouth.

Key regions: Kakheti (the heartland), Kartli, and Imereti. Key grapes: Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane, Saperavi (red), and Kisi.

Producers to seek out: Pheasant's Tears, Iago's Wine, Lapati Wines, and Zurab Topuridze. Many of these are available at natural wine bars worldwide — use isitfunky to find them near you.

Georgia isn't just part of natural wine history. It IS natural wine history. Every orange wine, every skin-contact white, every amphora-aged bottle owes a debt to the qvevri.

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