Georgian "Khvanchkara" Wine Jug

The peoples of the South Caucasus have been producing wine for thousands of years. Archeologists have found evidence that by 6000 BC, these people discovered that wild grape juice turned into wine when it was left buried through the winter in a shallow pit. From 4000 BC, Georgians were cultivating grapes and burying clay vessels, "kvevris", in which to store their wine. When filled with the fermented juice of the harvest, the kvevris are topped with a wooden lid and then covered and sealed with earth. In his book Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), McGovern argues that the domestication of the Eurasian wine grape and winemaking could have originated on the territory of modern day Georgia and spread south from there. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_wine
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