Georgians have been making wine in buried clay vessels for around eight thousand years, which makes this the oldest continuous winemaking tradition known. The vessel is a qvevri — egg-shaped, lined with beeswax, buried to the neck in the ground so the earth holds it at a steady temperature — and grapes go in whole, skins, stems and all, to ferment and then age for months under a sealed stone lid.
For white grapes that means extended skin contact, which produces the amber wines that the rest of the world spent the last fifteen years discovering and calling orange. Georgia was not experimenting. It never stopped.
UNESCO listed the method as intangible heritage in 2013. The country also holds something in the order of 525 indigenous grape varieties, more than anywhere else, most of which grow nowhere else at all.
Tbilisi, named for its water
The city's name comes from tbili, meaning warm. Sulphur springs rise under the Abanotubani quarter and the domed brick bathhouses built over them are still working — you take a private room by the hour, and the scrub is administered with some force by an attendant.
Above them the old town runs up a hillside of wooden balconied houses in various states of repair, with a fortress on the ridge, a cable car up to it, and a skyline that now includes some aggressively contemporary architecture dropped in over the past fifteen years. Opinions on that locally are divided and loudly held.
Kakheti and the mountains
Kakheti, an hour and a half east, is the main wine region: Sighnaghi on a ridge above the Alazani valley with the Caucasus behind it, marani cellars in village houses, and hundreds of small producers who will open a qvevri for anyone who asks.
Kazbegi, three hours north up the Georgian Military Highway, has a fourteenth-century church on a spur at 2,170 metres below a 5,000-metre peak.
The eight below are grouped that way.
Tbilisi
The old town and the river.
Stamba Hotel occupies a 1930s Soviet publishing house, where the state printing presses were, converted with the concrete structure left raw, a library, a courtyard and a photography museum in the basement. It is the most interesting building in the Caucasus.
Stamba Hotel
Vera, Tbilisi · 5★ · $$$
A 1930s publishing house left raw, with a photography museum
Check availabilityRooms Hotel Tbilisi sits in a former publishing building nearby with a long timber-lined lobby, a fireplace and a terrace over the river, and it is the hotel that started Tbilisi's reputation for design.
Rooms Hotel Tbilisi
Vera, Tbilisi · 5★ · $$$
The timber-lined lobby that started the city's design reputation
Check availabilityParagraph Freedom Square occupies a building on Freedom Square with a spa, a pool and the old town below.
Paragraph Freedom Square
Freedom Square · 5★ · $$$
A spa and pool above the old town
Check availabilityThe Biltmore Tbilisi sits above the city with a large spa, a pool and views across to the fortress.
The Biltmore Tbilisi
Rustaveli Avenue · 5★ · $$$
A large spa with views across to the fortress
Check availabilityRadisson Blu Iveria Hotel occupies a position on the river with reliable rooms and a rooftop.
Radisson Blu Iveria Hotel
Rose Revolution Square · 5★ · $$
A rooftop over the river with reliable rooms
Check availabilityHotel Vinotel sits in the old town in a small wine-focused property with a cellar, a handful of rooms and the bathhouses nearby.
Hotel Vinotel
Tbilisi old town · 4★ · $$
A small wine-focused house with a cellar near the baths
Check availabilityKakheti
The wine country, ninety minutes east.
Lopota Lake Resort & Spa occupies a lakeside estate in the Alazani valley with a spa, vineyards and the Caucasus on the horizon.
Lopota Lake Resort & Spa
Alazani valley, Kakheti · 5★ · $$$
A lakeside estate with vineyards below the Caucasus
Check availabilityKazbegi
Three hours north.
Rooms Hotel Kazbegi occupies a former Soviet sanatorium at Stepantsminda, stripped back to concrete and glass, with a pool and a wall of window facing the church on its spur and the mountain behind it.
Rooms Hotel Kazbegi
Stepantsminda · 4★ · $$$
A stripped Soviet sanatorium facing the Gergeti church
Check availabilityWhat we have left off
The family guest houses across Kakheti are excluded, and they are how most people see the wine country — a room, a marani cellar and a supra dinner that goes on for hours. They are guest houses rather than hotels.
What to do
Take a sulphur bath in Abanotubani. Private rooms by the hour, a scrub if you want one, and the smell takes some getting used to.
Drink qvevri wine with someone who makes it. In Kakheti this is easy and free and frequently ends in a supra, a formal feast with a toastmaster whose job is to keep the toasts coming.
Eat khachapuri and khinkali. The Adjarian khachapuri arrives as a bread boat with cheese, butter and a raw egg to stir in; khinkali are soup dumplings held by the twisted top, which you do not eat.
Drive the Georgian Military Highway to Kazbegi, over a 2,379-metre pass, and walk up to the Gergeti church.
See the cave city at Uplistsikhe and the Stalin museum at Gori on the same day, the latter being an object lesson in an unreconstructed narrative.
Practical notes
Tbilisi's airport has European and regional connections; Kutaisi serves budget carriers. Roads to Kakheti are good and to Kazbegi variable in winter.
May, June, September and October are best, with harvest in September. Summer is hot on the plain. Winter is cold and the mountain roads can close.
Georgia is very good value, and the hospitality tradition means refusing a drink requires more tact than you expect.
Every hotel bookable in Georgia
What is a qvevri?
A buried clay vessel lined with beeswax, used for fermenting and ageing whole grapes. The method is around eight thousand years old and UNESCO-listed.
What is amber wine?
White grapes fermented on their skins in qvevri, which the world recently rediscovered as orange wine. Georgia never stopped making it.
Tbilisi or Kakheti?
Both. The city for the bathhouses and the architecture, Kakheti for the wine. Ninety minutes apart.
How many nights?
Five. Three in Tbilisi and two in Kakheti.