The qvevri is inescapable in Georgia. Depictions of this traditional, earthenware winemaking vessel, on T-shirts, tea towels and fridge magnets, fill the tourist shops in the spruced-up centre of the capital, Tbilisi. They’re also a feature of roadside billboards and the signs of small-town cafes, bars and hotels with rows of the real things the prize exhibit in any winery tour.

The qvevri’s ubiquity is more than quaint tourist-board marketing. It’s a symbol of just how proud the Georgians are of being the oldest winemaking country in the world: in November last year, archaeologists on a dig south of Tbilisi uncovered fragments of qvevri with residual wine compounds dating back 8,000 years.

Paradoxically, the qvevri is also a symbol of the country’s pursuit of a very particular kind of modernity – one based on what John Wurdeman, an American painter-turned-winemaker and restaurateur making wine in the country’s main Kakheti region, calls “a way of living and creating informed by the past”. Along with dozens of other natural-minded winemakers looking to make modern wines in the old way, Wurdeman’s Pheasants Tears project with Georgian winemaking partner Gela Patalishvili, has returned to the qvevri as their vessel of choice.

It’s a means of production that leads to highly distinctive wines. After being lightly pressed, whole bunches of grapes are thrown into the beeswax-lined pots, which are buried in the ground, and once fermentation has taken place, sealed and left to age. The result: amber-coloured whites with the grippy structure of reds, and reds that often display a wild, spicy, herby quality.

Though it represents a small, albeit highly visible and growing, fraction of the country’s output, the qvevri renaissance has put Georgia at the forefront of winemaking fashion. Their wines have become a must-have for the world’s best restaurants and wine shops, and they’ve inspired a global movement of likeminded producers to work with clay. For a country that spent much of the 20th century making vast quantities of rough industrial plonk at the behest of Soviet central planners, it’s quite a turnaround – as well as being quite a journey for the evergreen clay pot.

Six of the best Georgian wines

Schuchmann Mtsvane Georgian Dry White, Kakheti, Georgia 2015 (£8.25, The Wine Society)
For many observers, Georgia’s greatest winemaking asset isn’t the qvevri, it’s the array of high-quality, individualistic native grape varieties such as mtsvane, which here shows floral fragrance and grapefruit zinginess in an easy-drinking dry white.

Château Mukhrani Rkatsiteli 2015 (£10, Marks & Spencer)
Characteristically, M&S has been one of the few mainstream retailers to give Georgia a spin, with both this spicy, fresh dry white and the chewier, fuller-bodied, qvevri-made, herb-and-apple-scented Tblvino Qvevris 2015 (£10), worth your attention.

Pheasant’s Tears Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2016 (from £19.95, Noel Young Wines; smilinggrape.com)
Thanks to the evangelical eloquence of American co-owner John Wurdeman, Pheasant’s Tears is arguably the best-known member of the natural qvevri movement. But with wines such as this ever-evolving, nutty, tangy, earthy red, they deserve to be.

Orgo Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2015 (£20, Roberson Wine)
The Dakishvili family was the standout producer for me on a recent trip to Georgia, this qvevri-made red so delectably dark but pure and supple, with wild dark cherry and blackberry, a superb expression of the great Georgian native saperavi grape variety.

Dakishvili Family Vineyards Vita Vinea Kisi Amber (£22.50, Bottle Apostle)
Another qvevri beauty from the Dakishvili family, using the native kisi variety for an amber wine that fills the mouth with white flowers, silky textured ripe quince and apple, and a patisserie creaminess. Complex, it evolves in the glass as you drink.

Telavi Marani Satrapezo Qvevri Saperavi, Kakheti, Georgia 2014 (£24.99, georgianwinesociety.co.uk)
One of Georgia’s largest producers has a small qvevri cellar alongside its vast ex-Soviet facilities, and the output is really impressive, not least in this deep, dark, sumptuously ripe, rich, glossy saperavi red, with its intense blackberry fruit.