Monastery of St. Davit Agmashenebeli

Robert Blasscyk of Lily Girl Vineyards reached out and contacted me about qvevri winemaking in the country Georgia. Lily Girl Vineyards is located in Tioga, Pennsylvania, close to Rt 15 and the New York border. Robert is very interested in creating a marani and producing traditional Georgian wines in buried qvevris. During our discussion, Robert mentioned that there was a monastery in the Pocono Mountains that has a marani.

Unearthed qvevri

Kathy and I did some searching, and with the help of members of the Georgian DC group on Facebook, we were able to call St. Davit Agmashenebeli (St. David the Builder). The staff had a meeting to attend on the day of our visit, so we walked around the monastery. It wasn’t long before we saw a bit of Sakartvelo, (Georgia).

Turning the left corner at the front of the monastery we spotted a small unearthed qvevri. A short distance away, there was a covered patio that housed the marani. As we walked through the marani, we spotted many of the items we have seen in Georgia. Firewood was stacked along the back close to a tone. We assumed that the monks would make mother’s bread (tonis pure) in the tone. However, this is the United States and next to the Georgian tone there were barbecues. The two together emphasized the old and new world thoughts of food.

Covered marani is open on the sides. Houses the qvevris, press and tone.

A tone is used for baking bread. The dough is slapped onto the inner wall of a hot tone to bake.

Opposite of the tone was the marani. A new-looking wood grape press was made from wood boards and had decorative trim along the top. Grapes would be placed in the press and stomped by foot, the juice directed into a buried qvevri. Most of the wood presses we saw in Georgia were carved from a single tree trunk. They were old and meant to last for centuries.

This wood press was built from lumber with decorative trim along the top.

The marani had six buried qvevri. Based on the diameter of the lids, the qvevris looked to be different sizes. At least four of the six qvevris would be too small to climb into to clean. We saw the cleaning tools, a cherry bark brush and a bowl used to remove water or chacha from the qvevri. We had experience using both of these tools at Twins Wine Cellar in Napareuli. Cleaning our qvevri, that held about 60 liters, involved placing clean water in the qvevri and using the cherry bark brush to clean the sides. Then we used the bowl to remove the dirty water from the bottom of the qvevri. It was too deep to reach the bottom by hand.

Instruments used for cleaning qvevris. The brush is made of cherry bark and used to scrub the inner walls of a qvevri. The bowl can be used to empty the dirty water after scrubbing.

Six qvevris are buried in this marani. This was very reminiscent of what we saw in Georgia.

The monastery marani reminded us of many of the maranis we saw in Georgia. Bricks outlined the circumference of the qvevris openings. The qvevris were sealed with stone. Larger bricks were used between the qvevris openings for the floor of the marani.

We have now seen qvevris buried in Pennsylvania and Virginia. We know of a qvevri maker in Texas. With this year’s harvest, I plan to make a qvevri wine in Maryland with a small qvevri I brought back from Georgia. We have also observed buried qvevris in Croatia and know that some winemakers in Italy, Spain and France are making qvevri wines.

The Monastery of St. Davit Agmashenebeli is in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. We hope to return to see the church. The marani at the monastery was the most accurate representation of what we saw in Georgia. It truly was a bit of Sakartvelo in America.

Cheers,
Terry