For our last day trip out of Tbilisi, we headed east into wine country! One of Georgia’s claims to fame is that it is the birthplace of wine. Archeologists have found evidence of grape cultivation and wine-making pottery as early as 8,000 BCE in Georgia. There are also still unique wine-making practices in the region. While we also got to see that a bit in Armenia, I was excited about a tour that was focused on Georgian wine-making tradition.
We went with a tour company called Eat This! Tours, and they were great. It was meant to be a small group tour, but it ended up just being the three of us, so we had a private experience at the various wineries. We started at a larger family-owned winery and got a tour of their vineyard.
So what does make the Georgian tradition unique? (And not 100% unique, to be clear, as we saw the same traditions in Armenia. Maybe I should rephrase to the Caucasus tradition.) They age their wine in ceramics instead of wooden barrels, and then those ceramic jars are buried underground for the aging process. It looks like this:
Once we had learned about the process, we had an elaborate lunch with wine and food pairings. Georgia definitely takes their food and wine seriously. Everything was delicious!
From there, we headed to Sighnaghi, which is one of the most well-known towns in the region. It was beautiful – I can see why it’s risen in popularity for the tourists coming to the Kakheti region for wine tasting. It has a cool set of city walls that were used to fortify it in the 18th century.
We had a short tour of the town before our next wine tasting!
We headed to our second wine tasting, which was at much smaller winery. It’s also family owned but it’s on a much smaller scale than the first place where we had lunch. It was nice to get a sense of the wine industry in Georgia. Not just the fancier ones that cater more to tourists, but also the places that are a little more off the beaten path. The wine was delicious!
Our last stop was a family home that makes their own artisan wines! They cooked an amazing dinner for us and showed us their own personal vineyard and wine-making set up.
All in all, it was a great day! Georgia’s food and wine and hospitality are excellent, and this was such a fun way to experience it. I think anyone who visits should do some sort of food and/or wine tour during their time in Georgia. I’ll have one more post from Georgia to summarize our time in Tbilisi, and then it will be on to the next destination.