Georgian wine history

Georgia is considered the cradle of wine culture. Wine has been produced here for 8,000 years. It is likely that wine cultivation spread to Europe via Turkey. In the 17th century, no other country in the world produced so many quality wines. Georgian wine is increasingly found at Western European wineries.

During excavations in Georgia, 8,000-year-old clay pots containing the remains of grape seeds were found. This makes Georgia the oldest wine country in the world. It is not without reason that the Georgian word ‘Gvino’ for ‘wine’ is not a loan word but comes from this region. The wine culture probably spread gradually to Europe via Turkey, Syria and Lebanon.

In the Middle Ages, wine was mainly used for religious events. Nevertheless, wine growing was soon modernised. Stone and wooden wine presses from this period have been found, as well as wooden wine barrels with double walls to be able to influence the temperature. Very innovative for this period. In France, people were not nearly that far yet.

According to a French explorer, there was no other country in the world in the course of the 17th century where so many different quality wines were made. The Georgian prince Alexander Chavchavadze had a wine shop built in Tsinandali where he regularly received well-known Russian writers. Georgian wine was already being consumed in Moscow during this period.

In the 1930s, production became industrial due to the Soviet planned economy. The (Georgian) Joseph Stalin nationalized the vineyards and had the wine exported to Russia. In the 1980s, the number of vineyards had decreased significantly. Several winegrowers had switched to other crops.

In 1991, Georgia became an independent republic. The vineyards were returned to their original owners. Production and bottling methods were drastically modernized to enable global export. Many Georgian winegrowers have managed to make enormous progress in a short period of time, often with the help of Western wine experts.

Exports increased rapidly, but Russia remained by far the largest sales market. The blow was therefore great when Russia closed its borders to Georgian wine in April 2006 for political reasons. Since then, Georgian winegrowers have been increasingly looking for new markets for the beautiful fruits of their millennia-old wine tradition.