VELLINO MTSVANE QVEVRI 2018

About the wine.

This wine has an aroma and taste like tropical fruits such as fresh peaches and pineapples. The slightly full-bodied taste from the grapes is combined with mild tannins typical of orange wines, creating a very good balance. The vineyards in Kakheti are farmed biodynamically, and the harvest is done by hand. For vinification, no cultured yeasts are used at all, and the wine is naturally fermented by native yeasts. The wine is fermented and aged in a quevery (amphora). 3 months skin contact maceration. The wine undergoes skin contact maceration for 3 months. No additives are used, and only a very small amount of sulfite is added at bottling time (total amount less than 40 mg/l The wine has a spicy roasted flavor.) This wine goes well with spicy roast chicken, dishes with Chinese sauces with sweet spices such as octagonal, sweet and sour pork with black vinegar, and salty cheeses in general.

VELLINO's natural wine without cultured yeast

About the winery.

Beka Gimsherase, a young winemaker at the age of 26 at the time, turned from the finance business and founded VELLINO in 2015 with the desire to continue her family's wine production. VELLINO's natural wines are produced from indigenous grapes grown using organic farming methods and traditional Georgian winemaking methods*. VELLINO's mission is to create unique and unparalleled wines and to share Georgia's 8,000-year old winemaking tradition with the world. (*The method of fermentation using clay containers buried underground, called kvevri, with skin contact. This winemaking method has been protected as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO since 2013)

Beka Gimsherase says her motivation for making wine is "family tradition.

Beka Gimsherase's main motivation when she started making wine was family tradition.
They cultivated the vineyards with their own hands, sang songs in the vineyards at the turn of the seasons (in Georgia, they believed that the vines understood people's moods, which would be expressed in the grapes and then in the wine), kept the vines and grapes as natural and healthy as possible without chemical interventions, and respected the ancestral To share and drink a glass or two of this wine every day with loved ones, out of respect for the kvevri and believing that naturally made wine is medicine. Beka's family has always paid respect to the vineyard, which is a part of nature, and to the wine, which is a sacred liquid given by nature.
These traditions have been the motivation and inspiration for all the wines made in the small family winery.

The family's song echoes through the wine making process.

All of Verino's vineyards are farmed organically. No pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers, or chemical sprays are used. The vineyards are plowed seasonally, pruned by hand, and all work is done by hand. The grapes are also harvested by hand. The vinification process is also natural. For fermentation and maceration, we use quevevris buried in the ground. The grapes are sorted by workers at harvest, and only the best grapes are crushed for spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts. After alcoholic fermentation, the quevevry is sealed and the wine is left on the skins for two to eight months of maceration. During this time, the shape of the quevery allows the wine to filter naturally. No sulfites are added during vinification, and the bottles are cleaned only for hygienic reasons. Once bottled, the wine is stored in a special temperature and humidity controlled cellar and then passed on to different countries.

Wine quietly maturing in the kvevri

For generations, Georgia has prided itself on being the birthplace of wine. The statue of Mother Georgia overlooking the capital city of Tbilisi, with a sword in one hand and a cup of wine in the other, symbolizes the passion for freedom and the warm hospitality of the Georgian people. The world's oldest wine-producing country is now being proven by archaeological research. In 2015, a study of the history of agriculture was conducted.

In 2015, scientists studying the history of agriculture discovered 8,000-year-old ancient pottery in an archaeological dig in southeast Georgia. The Neolithic site was the result of a joint project between the National Museum of Georgia and the University of Toronto.
Analysis of the residue (traces of grapes and grape seeds) in the pottery revealed that it dates back to around 6000 BC. This revealed that ancient Georgia was the first place where grape winemaking was practiced. It turns out that winemaking in Georgia had been going on for 3,000 years before the invention of writing, and 5,000 years before the beginning of the Iron Age.

Vineyards that have been carefully tended for generations