Georgia
Eight thousand years of wine: a first-timer’s Kakheti
Qvevri cellars, walled Sighnaghi and long lunches under the Caucasus. What to expect on your first day in Georgia’s wine country.
Guiding · Wine · 18 Jan 2026 · 5 min read
The qvevri difference
Georgian wine ferments in clay qvevri buried in the ground — a method 8,000 years old and now UNESCO-listed. It makes amber (skin-contact) whites unlike anything in Western Europe.
A day that works
Bodbe Monastery first, then the walled hilltown of Sighnaghi for the Alazani-valley view, then a family cellar for a tasting and a long supra lunch. It is a comfortable full day from Tbilisi.
If you don’t drink
No one is made to feel out of place. The food, the churches and the valley carry the day on their own, and there is always fresh churchkhela and lemonade at the cellar.