Did you know that wine has been transformed into jewelry and that you can now wear the 8,000-year-old Georgian culture of qvevri wine as jewelry?! Tamar Abuladze is the person who created the “Wine Diamond” and is now trying to bring this innovation to the world.
Tamar started her own business in 2019, and as she tells us, it happened completely by accident:
“I was going to one of the meetings and had a little time before this meeting. I came across a natural stone store, went in and started looking at beautiful stones. They served me so well, explained the properties of the stones in detail, that I bought these stones. In a few days, I created my first handmade item, and both the process and the result were so interesting that I decided to continue this activity. Very soon, the chest that my mother gave me was filled with works. After a while, I even created my own brand - “Emotion”, for which I chose “Transfer Emotion” as the slogan, and to this day, this accurately expresses what I want to tell people, that we should transmit emotion to each other. “I also create everything with love and try to convey emotion to people with my jewelry,” Tamar Abuladze tells us, recalling how her initiative led to the idea of creating “Wine Diamonds.”
The first jewelry she created from natural stones were grape bunch brooches. As she herself notes, this direction was driven by her love of wine:
“During the Covid pandemic, I began the process of searching for myself. I tried to get more information from various fields. Right at that time, I also graduated from wine school, where I learned a lot about wine, including the existence of wine crystals, which I first learned about through this school. My interests were also reflected in handmade jewelry, first in brooches made from natural stones, which almost all Georgian ambassadors wear, and later in the use of wine crystals,” says Tamar.
A new stage in Tamar's history began when she received a call from one of her customers on her phone and received an offer to make a logo for the company. The customer requested a logo with the concept of grapes, to which Tamar refused in response:
"I explained that these stones already have round shapes and I couldn't process them, I couldn't physically create a logo from these stones. When I finished the conversation, I talked to myself, as if it were an absurd idea - "I'll make a bar out of wine stone" - I remember that I suddenly stopped and thought, asked myself, - why can't jewelry be made from wine stone, or something like that, and this thought left me. I started looking for everything, asking winemakers for wine crystals and sharing the idea that I was going to make jewelry with these crystals, and everyone would tell me that it was impossible.”
As Tamar tells us, wine crystals grow in the cold, when the wine experiences a temperature shock and drops to minus 4 degrees. It is at this time that the minerals in the wine crystallize and the solidified mass hardens on the walls of the qvevri. These are the salts of wine acid, potassium - the most useful part of wine. Winemakers consider this material to be waste and throw it away. For Tamar, it became an innovation and for the first time in history, it began to be used in jewelry:
“It took me several months to come up with a method that would allow me to obtain a material that would be as durable as ordinary jewelry. I met all the conditions, retained the visual and primary Face,
I gave it the necessary hardness for jewelry and created the first jewelry from wine crystal. There is no analogue to this in the world. This is the first precedent when wine was transferred to jewelry,” says Tamar Abuladze.
After creating the jewelry, a new challenge appeared before Tamar. It was necessary to introduce this precedent to the world and interest people. From the wine crystals of the Georgian qvevri, which has an 8000-year history, the world received a new jewelry. Since wine does not exist in any line in jewelry, Tamar set a goal for the world not only to get to know her creation, but also for wine in jewelry to remain a separate direction, just like vitrified enamel, diamonds and other natural stones in jewelry.
In May 2023, Tamar Abuladze was in Italy on an exchange program, where she was hosted by the famous wine critic Carmelo Sgandura. During her stay there, Tamar worked on the promotion of her product, met successful entrepreneurs, and established new connections. The European Union is helping Tamar in this and other areas in communicating with representatives of different countries and introducing the brand to the world. With the help of the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Eurochambres) and the EU4Business project, Wine Diamond's products are now reaching beyond the borders of Georgia. The European Union actively supports small and medium-sized businesses in Georgia, especially women, which has a separate direction. In 2023, the European Union financed small and medium-sized businesses with €308.3 million. €75.8 million was spent on business development services (BDS) alone. Tamar Abuladze was involved in several projects and underwent training and consultations on business management with the help of leading experts in the field. He participated in study tours abroad and, as he describes, the information he received gave him a lot of experience:
“It is very important when foreign countries are interested in Georgian products. This is not only important from an economic and cultural point of view. The European Union allowed me to not only share our culture, but also to contribute to its development. I turned centuries-old cultures into innovations. As a result, my product became the property of Georgian culture. This is not only a business and the goal of making money, it is also a way to present my country among other cultures and civilizations. The European Union has made a great contribution both financially and in the informational direction. They are trying to help me promote my brand. I go through recommendations, receive trainings, and this knowledge helps me a lot in managing my business. Experienced mentors conduct visits to different countries. When I participate on behalf of the European Union, there is much greater interest in the entrepreneur. It is very difficult for small businesses to do all this independently. "It's difficult," says Tamar.
Tamari continues to develop her brand, thinks about innovations, and in the near future, she plans to transfer the "wine diamond" and diamonds to gold together. She promises that her jewelry will always strive to convey new emotions.
Author: Tamar Kuratishvili
Source: https://www.newpress.ge/rvino-samkaulshi-gadmovida
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