Izolda Dumbadze, Tamar Shalikadze

Georgia is traditionally regarded as one of the classical centers of the origin and development of viticulture and winemaking. This branch of agriculture also occupied a leading place in Adjara. The paper discusses the results of archaeological research related to viticulture and winemaking at archaeological sites in Adjara, allowing the development of this field to be traced from the Late Bronze–Early Iron Age through Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Particular attention is devoted to the processes that took place between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

As is well known, from the mid-sixteenth century onward, with the beginning of approximately three centuries of Ottoman rule and the gradual Islamization of the region, viticulture and winemaking underwent a profound functional transformation. Due to religious restrictions, wine cellars and winepresses were deliberately destroyed and vineyards were cut down. Archaeological investigations clearly reveal traces of this destruction.

In this context, the paper presents several open and enclosed wine cellars, as well as wine-production facilities incorporated into domestic and fortress complexes, which have been discovered and studied in recent years in the foothill and mountainous regions of Adjara.

Alongside the archaeological evidence, important information is provided by recent scholarship and archival materials reflecting the same period, including the waqfnamas of Lala Mustafa Pasha concerning Georgia, Ottoman tax registers, the Great Defter of the Vilayet of Gurjistan, and other sources.

The comparative analysis of written sources and modern research, including palynological and carpological studies, clearly demonstrates how viticulture in Adjara was transformed under political and religious pressure and how the local population nevertheless succeeded in preserving the unique genetic heritage of the grapevine.