Nerd Notes: Amphorae & Riesling Amphora

Making wine in amphorae has its origins in Georgia, a tradition that spans 6,000 years back. With advent of the natural wine movement, a renewed interest came in old cultural techniques.

Amphorae were used as fermentation, storage and transport vessels, before they were replaced with wooden barrels around the year 0 in the Mediterranean and northern European regions. A renaissance of qvevris and Spanish tinajas (another common type of amphora) began around the year 2000.

Our two tinajas, four qvevris and a clayver are constructed of compact sandstone that resembles granite. This makes them highly stable and watertight, yet still enabling a sufficient exchange of air through microscopic pores. Qvevris are coated inside with beeswax; our tinajas are made of flavour neutral baked clay and remain untreated. Our vessels are small and have content volumes between 200 and 300 litres. For this reason, they need not be buried in the earth. They are stored at a constant 10 °C (50 °F) in our baroque cellar.

Following initial experiments in 2009, we selected the Riesling grape variety to make our Amphora wine. Its low pH values and the crisp, vibrant structure produces a wine with verve, remarkable freshness and – more importantly – stability in the bottle. The grapes for this wine were fermented spontaneously on the skins. After some weeks of fermentation the wine continues to mature on the skins for another five months. Following another few months in a neutral vessel it was bottled unfiltered without sulphur. Our Riesling Amphora is best decanted and enjoyed at 14 °C (57 °F) in a large wine glass.

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