Food Traditions

Winemaking

Citation Formats

General Reference

Food and Drink Atlas. "Winemaking." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/food-traditions/winemaking.

APA Style

Food and Drink Atlas. (n.d.). Winemaking. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/food-traditions/winemaking

BibTeX

@misc{foodanddrinkatlas-winemaking,
  author = {Food and Drink Atlas},
  title = {Winemaking},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-food.interactiveatlas.org/food-traditions/winemaking},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The craft of fermenting the juice of Vitis vinifera grapes into wine. The earliest chemically confirmed evidence comes from Neolithic pottery jars at Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora in present-day Georgia, dated to the Early Ceramic Neolithic. Traditional Georgian winemaking still ferments and ages wine, skins and all, in large buried clay vessels called qvevri, a method UNESCO has listed as intangible cultural heritage.

Facts

Disputed

Origin Region

The South Caucasus (present-day Georgia), on current chemical evidence; the Zagros Mountains of Iran are a rival early candidate site specialists still weigh, the same tension already recorded on the Wine entity itself. 1

Origin Period, From (Year)

6000 BCE to 4500 BCE 1

Cross-Tradition Connections

Expressed By

Georgian Cuisine

Source Georgian Cuisine (Wikipedia)

Wine

Source Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Winemaking (ScienceDaily)

Sources

1. Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Winemaking (ScienceDaily)

ScienceDailyparagraph 2

Quote, paragraph 2

Excavations have focused on two Early Ceramic Neolithic sites (6000-4500 BC) called Gadachrili Gora and Shulaveris Gora, approximately 50 kilometres south of the modern capital of Tbilisi.

1. Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Winemaking (ScienceDaily)

ScienceDailyparagraph 1

Quote, paragraph 1

The discovery dates the origin of the practice to the Neolithic period around 6000 BC, pushing it back 600-1,000 years from the previously accepted date.

Georgian Cuisine (Wikipedia)

WikipediaExpressed By: Georgian Cuisine, section: Wine

Quote, Expressed By: Georgian Cuisine, section: Wine

Georgia is the oldest wine-producing region in the world...for at least 8000 years.

View the Source

Take a Related Quiz

Wine, Cheese and Spice: A New Threads QuizIncludes a question about Winemaking.

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