In 2011, she made her first trip to Georgia, where traces of wine residue have been found dating back to 6000 B.C. She was struck by the number of vintners who, despite decades of Soviet industrialization, still make wine in buried qvevri, giant earthen vessels sealed with beeswax.

They shun sulfites, which are often added to wine, in part because of sulfur’s tinge of the devil. “It’s religious for them,” she said. “Are you saying that God hasn’t given the grape everything it needs, to make wine naturally?”

Her khantsi was a gift from John Wurdeman, an American who, alongside an eighth-generation Georgian winemaker, runs the vineyard Pheasant’s Tears in Sighnaghi, in Georgia’s east. He made no concessions to her drinking habits, which are slightly less lusty than demanded at Georgian feasts: The horn is deep and daunting to drain. “Couldn’t you have got me a smaller one?” she asked him.

She keeps it on her kitchen wall until guests arrive. “You don’t drink from it on your own,” she said. “It’s only for company.”