Kakheti is the wine-making east, and "wine-making" does not mean here what it means in France. Wine is made in qvevri: clay vessels holding several hundred litres, buried up to the neck. The grapes go in whole, skins and stems included, and stay for months. The method is on the UNESCO intangible heritage list and remains ordinary working practice at hundreds of estates.
An hour and a half to two from Tbilisi to Telavi or Sighnaghi. Moving around without a car is hard: the estates are scattered with almost no transport between them. If the day involves tasting, driving is off the table — you need a transfer or a driver.
September and October bring rtveli, when every estate is working and family ones let you join the picking. Spring is in blossom and quieter. Summer is hot, and some smaller estates close until spring.
What to order and how: Georgian food.
Tell us when you are going and who with, and we will come back with a route and a price. A real person who knows these roads does the working out, not a calculator. No prepayment.
Khachapuri in Batumi and in Kutaisi are two different dishes with one name. Khinkali are eaten by hand in a set order, or the broth ends up on the table. And a "dry white" in Kakheti is not the drink you were expecting. What to order, how to eat it, and where it will be the real thing.
A ready week with one base and four day trips. You unpack once, everything worth seeing is within three hours, and the seventh day is deliberately left empty. Here is why, and how to reshape it if you fly into Kutaisi.
A country you can drive across in a day, where four hours take you from the beach to a glacier. And where a week covers about a quarter of what you planned. A breakdown by region: what to see, how many days it honestly takes, and where people miscalculate.
Mituda
