Coupe d'Or

We sustained one colour — the deep amber-red of the wine itself — through the linen, the candle wax and the dessert plates. Nothing was gold; everything was the colour of the bottle.

A family qvevri cellar outside Telavi, transformed for the evening. The ceremony in the upper courtyard at five; the dinner in the cellar at seven.

We held a fifteen-minute silence between the opening of the grandfather's bottle and the first pour. The cellar accepted it.

Wine — a single Saperavi from 1991, paired through five courses. Florals — red dogwood and dried tobacco leaf, no cut blooms. Music — Georgian polyphony at the toast, no other amplification. Photography — one photographer, one roll of film for the toast.