I’ll forgive you for not knowing this, but Georgia is the birthplace of wine. The earliest evidence of its existence here is 6,000 BC (for context, the earliest evidence of wine being produced in France is 500 BC…)! It therefore seemed rude to not visit the wine region in the east of the country, Kakheti. After being utterly impressed with the wine from Bosnia and Hercegovina, I was excited to see what Georgian wine had to offer. Turns out Georgian wine is very different to any wine I’m used to! Unlike conventional wine, Georgian wine is made with the pulps of the grapes as well as the juice. This results in much darker, richer, juicier wine. Some of the reds were like drinking ribena to be honest. It also means there is no white wine but amber wine, because of the effect of the pulp on the colour. The other major difference is that Georgian wine is made in 3 metre deep clay pots called Qvevri buried under the ground, rather than in wooden barrels. This does make wine production more accessible for the everyday person however, with every household and shop seeming to have a cellar with a Qvevri installed, and an insatiable desire to share this wine with you. Whilst we (another volunteer from Gomarduli joined me on this venture) did visit a winery, if you’re just interested in trying wine you could fulfil this by wandering around the town looking thirsty. The winery was very informative though, and beautifully maintained. Neat rows of turning orange vines, with blue painted wooden stakes and plagues describing the variety and origin of the grape. There were roses at the end of each row. Not just decorative we found out, but as an indicator for Mildew infections. This was learnt on our little tour with a student doing a degree in winemaking (the government fund wine degrees in an attempt to boost the wine market) and he also told us about ice wine - the reason some grapes were still on the vines despite the main harvest being over. These grapes are left over winter to freeze, with them then being used for wine. Their frozen nature increases the sugar content of the fruit and therefore the wine (not that it needs to be any sweeter in my opinion!).
A Qvevri in a random woman’s cellar, and a lot of Qvevri in the winery
On our tour of the wine region we made two stops. The first was in Sighnaghi, the more touristy, beautiful town. The second was in Telavi, the bigger town. Sighnaghi really was beautiful. The town stood atop a hill which rose out of the flat plains of vineyards, giving it breathtaking views. The view from our £5.25 a night guesthouse evidences it perfectly. The city walls with a church and then a tower sticking up out of it; a sharp drop and then open stretches of vineyards, beyond this sheer mountains rising up and touching the clouds. Sprinkle in some orange trees (some with pomegranates still hanging) and I struggled to look away. We enjoyed this view at sunset on our first evening over a tray of fruit, cake and, of course, wine, provided by the little lady.
Telavi was less beautiful, sat on the ground level rather than some lofty height. It still had the mountains as a backdrop however, and they caught the sun at sunset. It was a more convenient spot to visit vineyards, because it was on the same level as them. It also had an interesting bazaar, and was the first one I’d visited since Turkey. It was a lot smaller but a lot more pleasant to walk around. I think primarily because all of the stall owners were women (definitely not the case in Turkey!). It made me very happy to buy walnuts, fruit and a ponchiki from the little old ladies.
We travelled from Tbilisi to Sighnaghi, onwards to Telavi and then back to Tbilisi all by marshrutka, and it was very easy to do.
Some funny incidents
- I wanted to show Micah the joys of a guesthouse breakfast so we indulged in this while in Sighnaghi. We came downstairs to find a feast awaiting us as I expected would be the case. What was unexpected was being served a shot of chacha to “disinfect” us (a homemade spirit that ranges from 40-70% abv). Not wanting to be rude we drank it dutifully despite the burning sensation, only to look in horror as the little lady smiled and poured us another one, holding up three fingers. Oh dear. So by 9:20am we were three shots deep and feeling really quite drunk. I remained drunk all day, a fact I realised when I accepted a lift on my way back from the Bodbe monastery (which was beautiful) from a man on a motorbike with a sidecar. I sat in the sidecar as we raced the short distance back to the town with the wind burning my face as the chacha had my throat earlier, and felt giddy with the strangeness of the whole day. I’d lost Micah on our walk over to the monastery, turns out he’d decided he was too drunk for the day and returned to bed!
- We bought some wine from our guesthouse in Telavi to take back to Gomarduli for one of the other volunteer’s birthday. We spent ages haggling the price and carefully pouring it into bottles for us to take. So obviously, when we stepped off the marshrutka back in Tbilisi, we left the bag with the 3 litres of wine on the bus. We realised immediately, but still too late as we watched helplessly as it sped away. Replacement wine was bought in Tbilisi, and trying to act out what happened to the original wine was a fun activity during the silent retreat…