🍷 Tinaja

A tinaja is a large Spanish clay jar. In Andalusia, in the Montilla-Moriles area in the south of Córdoba province, wine fermented in tinajas like this. Other vessels later replaced them, but the words vino de tinaja are still allowed on local labels.

That is how it was done until the middle of the nineteenth century. Wine fermented in big clay jars and was then carried in skins or in smaller vessels. Coopers here mostly worked for local customers in Córdoba, Puente Genil or Antequera. What changed it was the arrival of Jerez shippers and the railway in 1865. Wine from the region began to leave in large lots, and it had to be stored and aged differently. So tinajas gave way to barrels and, later, to other tanks.

The clay is still on the label. The single document of the Montilla-Moriles denomination allows unaged wines to carry the words Vino de tinaja or Vino nuevo de tinaja. The leading grape of the region is Pedro Ximénez, with Moscatel next to it. Summers are hot, long and dry.

The tinaja is one branch of a bigger family. There are the Qvevri, the Karas, the Dolium, the Amphora and the Pithos, all of them gathered with the tinaja on the page Clay wine vessels.