Coming Soon To A Wine Near You: Ancient Amphorae

(Forbes) - Terra cotta amphorae, hand-crafted into shapes and styles known since antiquity, are the latest innovation in experimental winemaking. And they’re coming soon to a wine near you.

Andrew Beckham is the unlikely yet ideally-suited leader of the movement in the US. He is a high school ceramics teacher who first bought land in Oregon’s Chehalem Mountains AVA for its timber and suitability as an art studio.

“This has been a really magical journey for us,” Beckham said from the tasting room at Beckham Estate Vineyard in Sherwood. “Everything has happened by circumstance. I hated high school; never in a million years would I have thought I’d be a teacher. We bought the property to build a pottery studio; never in a million years would I have thought we’d plant vines. It’s all been incredibly fortuitous.”

Beckham was inspired by a small number of craftspeople around the world who make wine using the terra cotta medium, such as Elisabetta Foradori at her biodynamic winery near Trentino, Italy and the long tradition of winemaking in beeswax-lined amphorae in the Republic of Georgia. An established fine artist of ceramics in his own right, Beckham expanded his repertoire to include 75-gallon amphorae, which he makes in six-inch lifts using a technique called coil and throw. Each amphora takes two weeks to construct and three months to dry.