Skin contact wine1/17/2024 A vital aspect of the historic recipe is the fermentation and aging of these wines in qvevri (pronounced kway-vree ): huge earthenware, inverse teardrop–shaped vessels. Here, the winemaking style is defined by the use of extended skin macerations-especially for white grapes-creating what locals call amber wine. Georgia’s Kakheti Valley abuts the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains. Dolia are ideal for red-wine fermentations or skin-contact whites, as the larger opening at the top makes the removal of must from the juice far easier. It stands out in comparison to the others for its wide-open top. A dolium is similar to Georgian qvevri (but is made outside Georgia and isn’t quite as big) and has a tapered but flat bottom. A tinaja is a Spanish clay vessel that tapers at the top and the bottom, like an egg, and is large enough to ferment in. More common, and less noted, are tinajas and dolia. It would be used for transporting wine on ships.” Amphorae would be small, stackable, and stored under ships’ decks. “An amphora would be skinny, with a completely conical bottom,” Beckham says, “and have hooked handles at the shoulders. An amphora, which many people use as a catchall term for any clay vessel, actually refers to a specific vessel shape. “One real issue that we are running into is the nomenclature of these vessels,” says p otter-turned-winemaker Andrew Beckham of Beckham Estate Vineyard in Oregon’s Chehalem Mountain AVA. There are several types of clay vessels in use today, including the amphora, the tinaja, and dolium. These factors are capturing the attention of winemakers around the world and encouraging new scholarship. Beyond the romanticism involved in borrowing ancient techniques, terra-cotta pots offer unique interactive properties with wine - they pull out acidity, allow oxygen exchange, and provide superior insulation, among other benefits - that are different from those of stainless steel, wood barrels, or concrete. While these pots are an uncontested link to the past, they are also becoming a resource for the future of winemaking. His team conducted the liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry testing that confirmed the age of the Georgian vessels. D., the scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia. “Almost every ancient culture, from the Canaanites to the Egyptians to the Assyrians to the Greeks and Romans, vinified in pottery vessels,” says Patrick McGovern, Ph. Neolithic Age wine vessels recently found in the Republic of Georgia were tested and confirmed to be the world’s oldest. Clay vessels have been used to ferment and age wine since ancient times.
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