 and Four of Wines. What are those? Find out in this video. Oh, welcome back to Exotic Wine Travel. I am your host, Matthew Horkey, coming to you live, actually not live, but coming to you from the Villa Familia in Austria, Croatia. We're staying here for a little while during this lockdown phase, lockdown part of the world, and we're going to be shooting a couple of videos from this location. That's why you show a little highlight clip in the beginning. But the topic of this video is Amphora wines. What is that? What is an Amphora? Well, Amphora is a clay vessel, a terracotta vessel that was traditionally used by the, I mean, Chinese were using them, but also the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Romans to transport wine all across the Mediterranean. But the production of wines in Amphora can be traced back to Georgia, in the Caucasus region, to a lesser extent, Armenia, neighboring Armenia. In Georgia, they call them Quaveri. In Armenia, they call them Caras. So what happens? Traditionally, the best known Amphora wines are orange wines or amber wines. That's the style that originated in Georgia. That's a white wine. White wine grapes made like a red wine. Basically, they throw the skin, this pulp, and the stems in the Amphora, in the Georgian Quaveri, where it ferments, mass rates, has this golden amber-light color. This may be traced back 6,000, even 8,000 years ago. You know, we actually began our wine career with a book on the wines of Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia. So that was our first introduction to Quaveri wines or Amphora based wines. But now you can see them made all over the world. You may find them in America, Australia, Chile, Thailand, I've even seen before, all over Europe, especially in Croatia. I have this great producer, Tomas, that does a lot, even sparkling wine made in Amphora, Italy, especially Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Austria, basically, even Slovakia. In Portugal, they actually have an Appalachian dedicated to Amphora wines, what are called Vignod Italia. That's what we have here. These wines are becoming really trendy right now, especially the orange or amber wines made in Amphora. But I'm finding myself lately drawn more towards reds that are made in Amphora. I had a brilliant San Giovese from El Borro made in Amphora. The Vignod Italia was just in Alentejo last year, spent a week there, tasted some brilliant wines out of the Italia. This is an interesting wine. We actually got sent. This is a Georgian man living in the UK, but makes multiple Ciano, takes the grapes from Italy and makes them in Georgian Quaveri in the UK. Where can you find these wines? These are geeky type wines. So you're going to only find them in specialty shops or you'll have to order them from the internet. And a lot of times, since they're made in such tiny quantities, sometimes they're only sold at the cellar door. What you can expect from these types of wines, for me, I usually want to see texture. I usually want to see texture. And some people say the Amphoras, the Quaveri's, the Caross do give off some flavors, some mineral clay type notes. I haven't picked that up as much, but I want to feel texture. Usually these wines are un-fined, unfiltered, and generally they're a little bit more expensive. The best deals I've seen are some of the small producers in Georgia or some of the Vinho de Tadia in Portugal. So let me know, do you enjoy wines from Amphora? Are you drinking them? Do you have some favorite producers? What? Shoring just distracted me. So let me know in the comment section below. And guys, if you liked this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel, and I will see you at the next episode.