Georgian Wine

Georgia is one of the oldest wine producing regions of Europe. Grapevine has been cultivated in the fertile valleys of the South Caucasus for at least 7000 years. Because of that the traditions of its viticulture are entwined with the country's national identity. Georgia is believed by many to be the source of the world's first cultivated grapevines, and many also believe that the word wine is of Georgian origin.

Among the best-known regions of Georgia where wine is produced are Kakheti (further divided onto micro-regions of Telavi and Kvareli), Kartli, Imereti, Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti, and Abkhazia.



It has been documented that the roots of its viticulture are between 7000 and 5000 BC, when peoples of South Caucasus discovered that wild grape juice turned into wine when it was left buried through the winter in a shallow pit. This knowledge was nourished by experience, and from 4000 BC Georgians were cultivating grapes and burying clay vessels, kvevri, in which to store their wine ready for serving at perfect ground temperature. When filled with the fermented juice of the harvest, the kvevris are topped with a wooden lid and then covered and sealed with earth. Some may remain entombed for up to 50 years.

This love affair with the grape was given further encouragement by the arrival of Saint Nino in the 4th century. Fleeing Roman persecution in Cappadocia, in what is now central Turkey, and bearing a cross made from vine wood and bound with her own hair. Saint Nino was swept up in the warm embrace of the Georgians, who became early converts to Christianity. Thus the cross and the vine became inextricably linked in the Georgian psyche, and the advent of the new faith served to sanction these ancient vinous practices. For centuries, Georgians drank, and in some areas still drink, their delicious wine from horns and skins specially treated for this purpose. These drinking implements came from their herd animals, as no part of the valued and respected beasts went to waste. The horns were cleaned, boiled and polished, creating a unique, durable and quite stylish drinking vessel. These horns were prized by the merchants and warriors that travelled the fertile valleys of the Caucasus. Today they are still a prized symbol of the historic eras.

Wine vessels of every shape, size and design account for the bulk of earthenware artifacts unearthed by Georgian archaeologists. The Georgian craft of pottery is millennia old. Ancient artifacts attest to the high skill of Georgian craftsmen in whose hands water, clay and fire turned into an object of an exceptional beauty much admired by people. The most impressive of all archaeological finds are kvevri, giant clay vessels in which wine was fermented and stored up. The old ones used to dig them into soil, just as we are doing now. Georgian museums have on display numerous clay vessels of all designations. Some were used to ferment grape juice and to store up wine, such as kvevri, chapi and satskhao, and others were used for drinking, such as khelada, doki, sura, chinchila, deda-khelada, dzhami and marani. For ages, artisans polished their skills to improve these vessels. The secrets of trade passed on from fathers to sons. Modern potters carefully study the ancient craft and decorative patterns and create their own pottery making extensive use of ancient national traditions and using the latest scientific and technological achievements to enrich ancient traditions.

Many of the unearthed silver, gold and bronze artifacts of the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC bear chased imprints of the vine, grape clusters and leaves. On the basis of this evidence it is safe to say that viticulture has a long record in Georgian history. The State Museum of Georgia has on display a cup of high-carat gold set with gems, an ornamented silver pitcher and some other artifacts dated the 2nd millennium BC The museum of history has a cameo depicting Bacchus. Numerous sarcophagi with wine pitchers and ornamented wine cups, found in ancient toms, are a proof that wine was nothing unusual for Georgians at all times.

List of grape varieties

Grape varieties
List of grape varieties

Wine grapes on the vineWine is usually made from one or more varieties of the European species, Vitis vinifera. When one of these varieties, such as Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, or Merlot, for example, is used as the predominant grape (usually defined by law as a minimum of 75 or 85%) the result is a varietal, as opposed to a blended wine. Blended wines are in no way inferior to varietal wines; some of the world's most valued and expensive wines from the Bordeaux, Rioja or Tuscany regions, are a blend of several grape varieties of the same vintage.

Wine can also be made from other species or from hybrids, created by the genetic crossing of two species. Vitis labrusca, Vitis aestivalis, Vitis rupestris, Vitis rotundifolia and Vitis riparia are native North American grapes, usually grown for eating in fruit form or made into grape juice, jam, or jelly, but sometimes made into wine, eg. Concord wine (Vitis labrusca species).

Hybrids are not to be confused with the practice of grafting. Most of the world's vineyards are planted with European vinifera vines that have been grafted onto North American species rootstock. This is common practice because North American grape species are resistant to phylloxera. Grafting is done in every wine-producing country of the World except for Chile and Argentina, which have yet to be exposed to the insect.[17]

The variety of grape(s), aspect (direction of slope), elevation, and topography of the vineyard, type and chemistry of soil, the climate and seasonal conditions under which grapes are grown, the local yeast cultures altogether form the concept of "terroir." The range of possibilities lead to great variety among wine products, which is extended by the fermentation, finishing, and aging processes. Many small producers use growing and production methods that preserve or accentuate the aroma and taste influences of their unique terroir.[18]

However, flavor differences are not desirable for producers of mass-market table wine or other cheaper wines, where consistency is more important. Producers will try to minimize differences in sources of grapes by using wine making technology such as micro-oxygenation, tannin filtration, cross-flow filtration, thin film evaporation, and spinning cone.[19]

Red Wine...

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A glass of red wineThis article is about the alcoholic beverage. For the software application, see Wine (software).
For other uses, see Wine (disambiguation).
Wine is an alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of unmodified grape juice.[1] The natural chemical balance of grapes is such that they ferment completely without the addition of sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients.[2] Although other fruits like apples and berries can also be fermented, the resultant "wines" are normally named after the fruit (for example, apple wine or elderberry wine) and are generically known as fruit or country wine. Others, such as barley wine and rice wine (e.g. sake) are made from starch-based materials and resemble beer more than wine, while ginger wine is fortified with brandy. In these cases, the use of the term "wine" is a reference to the higher alcohol content, rather than production process.[3] The commercial use of the English word "wine" (and its equivalent in other languages) is protected by law in many jurisdictions.[citation needed]

The word "wine" derives from the Proto-Germanic *winam, an early borrowing from the Latin vinum, "wine" or "(grape) vine", itself derived from the Proto-Indo-European stem *win-o- (cf. Ancient Greek οῖνος oînos).[4] Similar words for wine or grapes are found in the Semitic languages (cf. Arabic ﻭﻳﻦ wayn) and in Georgian (gvino), and the term is considered an ancient wanderwort.[5]

Dance History

Dance (from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish) generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.
Dance also is used to describe methods of non-verbal communication (see body language) between humans or animals (bee dance, mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind), and certain musical forms or genres.

Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. Dance disciplines exist in sports such as gymnastics, figure skating, and synchronized swimming, and martial arts kata are often compared to dance.

Computer...

Computer generated image as digital art. The image was created using POV-Ray 3.6. The glasses, ashtray, and pitcher were modeled with Rhinoceros 3D and the dice with Cinema 4D.
Created by Gilles Tran and rendered by Deadcode

Greek(people)

Today the Greeks call themselves Hellenes (Έλληνες), though they have been known by a number of different names throughout history. The soldiers that fell at Thermopylae did so as Hellenes. During the time of Jesus, the term shifted and any person of non-Jewish faith was called Hellene. By late Antiquity, the Greeks referred to themselves as Romaioi, i.e. Romans. Western Europeans used the term Greeks and the Persians and the Turks used the term Yunans, i.e. Ionians. An interesting and unique form is kept in Georgian. In ancient times, Georgians (Colchians and Iberians) called Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni. This form derives from the Georgian word ბრძენი brdzeni - wise. According to Georgian historians, the name is connected with the notion that philosophy was born in Greece. Modern Georgians still call Greeks ბერძენი berdzeni and Greece საბერძნეთი saberdznet'i, 'Greeks' land' or literally 'land of the wise'. The onset of every historical era was accompanied by a new name, either entirely new or formerly old and forgotten, extracted from tradition or borrowed from foreigners. Each of them was significant in its own time, and all can be used interchangeably, which means that the Greeks are a polyonymous people.