Beridze Qvevri House

The family

Levan Beridze is a qvevri maker as much as a winemaker. He fires the vessels himself in a kiln behind the house, which takes a week and which he will happily let you watch if the timing happens to work out, and he sells them to other families across Kakheti.

The wine is almost a by-product of the pottery, though he would not thank anyone for saying so. Two hectares of Saperavi on the red soil below Kvareli, fermented in his own qvevri and aged in them too. His wife Mariam runs the guest house and does not make wine, a division of labour she describes as the only thing keeping the marriage intact.