Kvevri ( cargo. ქვევრი ) - in Transcaucasia, a ceramic product resembling an amphora , but without handles. It has the shape of a cone and is used in the manufacture of wine .
Kvevri come in many sizes - from the usual pitcher to huge, several thousand liters . The most common type of qvevri holds 1-2 tons of wort. The use of qvevri of especially large sizes is distinguished by Kakheti , where you can see such dishes with a capacity of 6-8 thousand liters. A famous place for making qvevri is the village of Vardisubani in eastern Georgia.
Armenia has its own kind of qvevri, which is called carp . Similar vessels were also known in Ancient Greece ( pifos ) and Central Asia (hum) [1] .
Content
History
The oldest qvevri type pottery discovered in Georgia dates back to 6-5 thousand BC. e.: these are small clay vessels having a height of not more than 1.5 meters, a flat bottom and a wide belly. The existing ovoid form of qvevri was formed in the 3-2 millennium BC. e.
Until the beginning of the 20th century, qvevri were considered the only containers for the manufacture and storage of wine used in Georgia [2] .
At the end of 2011 in Georgia, qvevri was recognized as an object of cultural heritage of national importance and assigned to the intangible fund of the country's cultural heritage; The Georgian authorities also asked UNESCO to include the qvevri method of making wine in the UNESCO intangible cultural heritage list [3] [4] and in 2013 it was included there [5] .
Usage
Kvevri is buried in the ground at the very neck and put grapes in it, often together with the ridges of grapes. During active fermentation , under the influence of carbon dioxide, the cap of the pulp rises to the neck of the jug, and when fermentation is completed and the gas comes out, it settles to the bottom, and qvevri is sealed until spring. So in the rooms where qvevri with marani wine is stored , the wine matures and insists on the pulp (that is, on the skin, bones and ridges) for several months. In spring, the jugs are opened, the wine is removed from the sediment and begin to drink.
The described method was called Kakheti - in the region of eastern Georgia , where it has been used for centuries. Sometimes wine is transported with qvevri, then a special cart is used.
Kvevri is a porous vessel in which it is extremely difficult (and skeptics believe that it is generally impossible) to achieve constant hygiene . Microflora appears in the pores of clay, and to limit its distribution, qvevri is cleaned and waxed , but the wax is not neutral. There are problems with the temperature regime: qvevri buried in the ground during fermentation heat up, and the temperature of the cellar is often not enough to cool the containers, and overheating of the fermenting wort is fraught with at least the appearance of the roughest aroma in wine.
Notes
- ↑ Pythos . Great Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius . Date of treatment November 29, 2013.
- ↑ Dr. David Chichua. Wine made in Kvevri - history, description, analysis (inaccessible link) . kvevri.com. Date of treatment November 29, 2013. Archived December 3, 2013.
- ↑ Georgia wants to add to the UNESCO cultural heritage list the national method of winemaking . Voice of Russia (11/08/2013). Date of treatment November 29, 2013.
- ↑ “Kvevri” became a part of the cultural heritage of Georgia . Alcohol.Su - informational alcohol portal (February 13, 2012). Date of treatment November 29, 2013.
- ↑ Ancient Georgian traditional Qvevri wine-making method . Inscribed in 2013 (8.COM) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity . UNESCO Date of treatment December 5, 2013.
See also
- Karas
Links
- Kvevri // Georgia for All website , CC-BY-SA licensed material