Abstract
In 2014, the National Wine Agency of the Republic of Georgia initiated a three-year “Research Project for the study of Georgian Grapes and Wine Culture. Through collaborative research by Georgian and foreign institutions and researchers, the project aims to: stimulate research of Georgian viticulture and viniculture, through the lens of the country with the earliest tradition of grape domestication and winemaking; and to reconstruct the continuous development of viticulture and wine culture through time. The project advances the study of grape and wine culture by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, including: archaeology, history, ethnography, molecular genetics, biomolecular archaeology, palaeobotany, ampelography, enology, climatology and other scientific fields. These studies are diachronic in their approach, beginning with the oldest Neolithic civilizations, to present day, creating a holistic understanding of the continuity and complexity of Georgian Wine Culture to help popularize Georgian Wine throughout the global wine market.
Highlights
IntroductionThe Republic of Georgia, a small country of the South Caucasus, located between Black and Caspian Seas, has a long and ample history of viticulture and winemaking
The Republic of Georgia, a small country of the South Caucasus, located between Black and Caspian Seas, has a long and ample history of viticulture and winemaking.The first domestication of grapevine (Vitis vinifera ssp. sativa) took place from its wild ancestor Vitis vinifera ssp silvestris probably in the Caucasian area [1] and the most ancient evidence of wine making activities date back to the Neolithic period in the mountainous region of the Near East, including the Caucasus, the eastern Taurus, and the northwestern Zagros where the earliest chemically attested wine jar discovered to date at Hajji Firuz Tepe, is located [2]
The project advances the study of grape and wine culture by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, including: archaeology, history, ethnography, molecular genetics, biomolecular archaeology, palaeobotany, ampelography, enology, climatology and other scientific fields
Summary
The Republic of Georgia, a small country of the South Caucasus, located between Black and Caspian Seas, has a long and ample history of viticulture and winemaking. Investigations into the history of the modern grapevine began in the 1960s, with the discovery in the territory of modern South Georgia, Northern Armenia and Western Azerbaijan of one of the earliest cultures of the South Caucasus, known as “Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture dated between 6.000 – 4.000 BCE (Fig. 1) [7,8,9] This archaeological culture is identified through its mudbrick architecture, ceramics, stone and bone tools, and advanced agriculture with the cultivation of several crops, among which it has been considered grapes – suggested by the discovery of a motif of four stylized grape bunches that somewhat frequently appears on the walls of clay jar, best exemplified by the example uncovered at “Khramis Didi Gora”, on exhibit in the Georgian National Museum (Fig. 2) [10,11,12]. The aim of this paper is to provide basic information about this project and its main results to wide audience of researchers and policy-makers of the vini-viticultural sector, as well as to provide evidences of the rich culture of grape cultivation and wine making in Georgia
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