Orange wine part II – Where it all started

Magnificent kvevris (or amphoras) decorate Gravner's vineyards.

Where it all started 

Some argue that orange wine is just a whim of fashion. However, archeological findings from Caucasus, or modern day Georgia, locate the origin of wine making to this very area. The excavated red clay vessels with wine residues on them support the notion of orange wine being the first wine ever made, which took place around 6000 B.C. Furthermore today, the very same type of thick walled, cone shaped, red clay vessels, kvevris (or qvevris), are used for fermenting and storing orange wine in Georgia as they were roughly 8000 years ago. Kvevris surely make oak and stainless steel look like whims of fashion!

In addition to their constant success in Georgia, kvevris have increasingly made their way to Europe since 1990’s. Currently, the heartland of kvevri fermented and maturated wine is in North-East Italy, in Collio-Brda area. This region is situated at the border of Italy’s Friuli and Slovenia. Orange wine is also produced in various vessels (plastic, oak, steinless steel) at numerous corners of the world, including Croatia (the neighbour of Italy and Slovenia), as well as other parts of Italy, Sicily, France, Austria, California and Australia. Kvevris, however, are hardly seen outside Georgia and Italian/Slovenian Collio-Brda area.

What is a kvevri?

Kvevri is a cone shaped red clay vessel lined with beeswax. They vary in size from small (100 liters) to enormous (10 000 liters), and are sometimes also called (slightly inaccurately) amphoras. However, kvevris differ from amphoras in that they do not have handles, and are shaped differently. In fact, at a quick glance kvevris appear really impractical: you can’t carry them and they will fall on their side due to their sharp shape when placed on a surface. Why on earth were they made this way 8000 years ago, and still are?

Kvevris (or amforas) buried in the ground at Gravner.

Kvevri is buried in the ground

Kvevri’s odd shape is geniously functional considering the winemaking circumstances thousands of years ago. There was no technology for temperature control or chemicals available for sanitation (not to mention understanding of microbes). A kvevri buried in the ground provides the wine with steadily temperature controlled, cool environment. Soil in the ground remains cool and in relatively constant temperature year round compared to air temperature, which might vary in Mediterranean from blazing hot in the summer to minus degrees Celsius in the winter. Temperature variation and high temperatures are detrimental to wine aromas. Hence, kvevris.

Lacking tannin, white wine is especially susceptible to oxidation and infection. This is why ancient white wine was made with prolonged skin contact to extract tannin, a natural antioxidant and preservative, to the wine. Although tannin shields white (or orange) wine from being spoiled, extended skin contact is not without risks. Especially stalks and pips are plentiful in bitter compounds and in abundance result in unpleasant, astringent wine. The solution is kvevri’s shape. In the start of fermentation most of the skins, pips and stalk material is floating on the grape juice. As fermentation continues, more and more of this cap starts to fall on the bottom of the fermentation vessel. The first to fall down are pips and the stalks; the skins follow later. In the cone shaped kvevri, these most bitter components of the grapes become soon covered with grape skins. In addition, kvevri’s conical shape nicely limits the contact area between the fallen solid material and the wine, and on top of that, allows only minimal contact between the wine and the bitterest part of the grape material. Genious!

Natural wine

Orange wines are produced in variety of styles – with more or less prolonged skin contact; aging the wine for months or years; in all kinds of vessels including kvevris, stainless steel, plastic and oak. However, practically all orange wine producers are minimally interventionistic, meaning e.g. that they rarely add commercial yeasts to their wines or use herbicides or pesticides in their vineyards, and often use only very small amounts of sulphites to protect their wines from spoilage. Some of them are certified organic or biodynamic producers. This minimally interventionistic approach is rather ambiguously referred to as “natural wine”-movement, and due to its broad definition, covers a multitude of more and less adventurous wine making philosophies. Getting acquainted with orange wine will inevitably bring you in contact with natural wine and its various quality levels as well. So, let’s enjoy this adventure together!