Terry cleaning a 24 liter qvevri at home in Maryland

Last week, millions of “The Amazing Race” fans may have had their first glimpse of the only winemaking technique that is on the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Some of the teams opted to go to Iago’s Wine in Chardakhi, Kartli, Georgia and clean a qvevri. Qvevris are earthen vessels that are used for fermentation, maceration and aging of wines. Making wine in qvevri is a protocol that is thousands of years old. So is cleaning them.

The contestants had to climb into the qvevri, remove the cha cha (left over skins, stems and a bit of wine) and then wash the sides of the qvevri with water. Owner and winemaker, Iago Bitarishvili, inspected the qvevri after the cleaning. Two of the teams had to do a little more cleaning before they passed this task.

Cleaning a qvevri does take a bit of time. We have a qvevri from the country Georgia in our yard. I clean it after the wine is removed in the spring, and clean it again before grapes are placed into it in the fall. Unlike the qvevris shown on The Amazing Race, my qvevri is small and I can reach the bottom. It still takes some scrubbing with fresh water and a brush. After scrubbing the sides, I discard the cloudy water and repeat the process until the water is clean after scrubbing the interior. It did not appear that the contestants in the Amazing Race cleaned to that level. Iago will still have some cleaning to do.

Kathy filling the qvevri with Rkatsiteli grapes. The Amazing Race did not show this part.

The Amazing Race task was about cleaning the qvevri, not tasting the wine made in it. The teams removed white grape skins from the qvevris, so it seems that white wines were made in them. The white wine process involves placing the grapes into the qvevri after harvest for fermentation. The white grapes are fermented on their skins and sometimes stems are added. How many skins and stems are used during fermentation is regional. After fermentation, many of the Georgian winemakers leave the wine, skins and stems in the qvevri for several months. We left our white wine on the skins and stems for six months. The resulting white wine is often a dark yellow to amber color. It often has a medium/full to full body and tannins. Depending on the grape variety, one may notice floral hints and jammy yellow fruit.

Fermenting grapes in a qvevri, after six months the wine is removed and clean up begins.

If any of the Amazing Race teams would like to get the experience of cleaning a qvevri, let me know. I have one that needs its spring cleaning.

Cheers,
Terry