Georgia sends 55 qvevri to Canadian restaurant

Georgia has sent 55 qvevri, a large, ancient Georgian winemaking vessel to Canada, which will be located in Vancouver.

Winemaker Sandro Milorava helped the Canadian restaurant owner Pascal Roy to export qvevris from Georgia.

The qvevris are made in western Georgia and are currently on their way. As Milorava says, the qvevris will arrive in Canada by the end of June.

The capacity of the qvevris is 50 to 1000 liters.

Roy plans to make the local grape wine initially, but as Milorava says, he is going to plant Rkatsiteli vine variety in the future.

Roy visited Georgia in autumn last year. He was hosted by wine company "Marani Milorauli" in Kakheti, where he participated in the vintage process.

The Georgian traditional method of qvevri wine-making won a place on the list of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) "intangible cultural heritage of humanity" in 2013, which indicates the uniqueness of this method and is a message to the world that wine is a part of ancient Georgian culture.

Currently, qvevri wine is already being made by individual winemakers in Italy, USA, France, Spain, Japan, Slovenia and Slovakia.

Known as the "cradle of wine”, Georgia has a long tradition of producing organic wine. One of the country’s oldest wine-making methods involves the use of a qvevri, which is traditionally buried in the ground up to its neck, and in which wine is fermented and stored. Georgia is the only country in the world that produces qvevri.