Touring Georgia's Iconic Wine Region

Georgia is European in its heart. Or maybe Europe is Georgian at its heart? Zack and I wanted to get a taste of what life in the Georgian countryside is like. So, though we spent three days in Tbilisi together, we wanted to get out of town a little bit.

Why do I talk about Georgia being European at heart? Well, they love wine, they love cheese, and they love bread. Frankly, a match made in heaven with the French or the Italians. In fact, Georgia is the birthplace of wine, and the word wine comes from the Georgian word ღვინო: ghvino. The Kartvelian languages, to which Georgian belongs, have no known relatives. Georgian is a language isolate, if you ignore its three closely related, near extinct sisters spoken only in Georgia and pockets of southern Russia. Thus, the word ღვინო is not a relative of the word wine, vino, etc., but rather, a loan word into those languages. In places where ghv cannot start a word (which is, shocker, most places), the gh was dropped during borrowing in favor of just the v.

Traces of winemaking, in clay fermentation pots called kvevris, have been found to be up to 8,000 years old, and here in the Caucasus, wine is king. There’s no beer culture here, and the few beers I’ve had have been subpar at best. But the wine? Excellent. And everybody is so passionate about it. If you try to order at a restaurant just a wine they have listed on the menu, they won’t let you order it until you’ve confirmed the name you want and that you understand all of its properties. Like just give me the cheap wine, it’s not that deep when a glass costs $1.50…

Anyways, let me get into our escapade out to the Kakheti wine region.

We began the morning with a historical tour, before we got into the wine tasting and tour in the afternoon. Our guide, Salome, was extremely knowledgeable and told us so much about the region.

So who are the people of the Kakheti region—the people that make up most of Georgia today? They believe themselves to be the direct descendants of Noah, and as I covered in the last post, they believe that they got their land as a gift from God, who gave away his own personal heaven to ensure that the Georgians have land despite being late to the time at which God partitioned the earth’s land to the people. Christianity was first delivered to the Georgians by Saint Nino (as covered in the previous post), who made a cross of grapevine to explain to the Georgians Jesus’s story. She died in Kakheti, and attempts were made to move her body from that spot to be buried appropriately, but when people went to pick up her body, she was too heavy to move. It was as if she was meant to stay in that spot. For that reason, the Bodbe Convent was built over her grave.

Nowadays, the Bodbe convent is really nicely redone, with polished stone, beautiful murals, and now, there’s even a second church under construction. The whole complex overlooks miles of rolling hills and small mountains, and up at the convent, despite the crowds of tourists, the chirps of the birds and the singing of the insects is all that fills your ears. It’s peaceful and calm there, a haven from the city.

As I said, the convent was redone. In the Soviet period, practicing religion was actively discouraged. The Soviets covered the murals with lime as to degrade the art and rid the walls of the dangerous religious messaging. The church was converted to a hospital, and others in the region were made to theaters or even bath houses. After the Soviet period, lots of money went into the renovation and revitalization of these holy spaces to ensure that their importance remains known for future generations, and their blissful atmosphere can return to bring peace to tourists and pilgrims alike.

At this point, we headed to Sighnaghi, which is right outside of the Bodbe convent. This is a charming old town in Kakheti which has really put itself out there as a tourist haven.

This region has historically been rivals with the Dagestani people in what is nowadays southern Russia, just across the main Caucasus ridge from Georgia. They had to build their cities to be fortified from their powerful enemies. This is in direct contrast to Svaneti—another region in Georgia—whose towns are filled with defensive towers to fight off the neighboring villages. In Svaneti, the mountains are so treacherous that the only societal interactions were between neighboring villages, and not between neighboring civilizations. I really regret not getting out to Svaneti, but as it’s so hard to reach, it really wasn’t in the cards. Maybe next time I come to Georgia I’ll get out there.

The Kakheti people, then, built a defensive wall around much of their region to protect it from the invading Dagestanis, and now, there’s the “Great Wall of Georgia,” which we visited. In 1783, the Georgians signed a treaty with Russia which, in return for protection, would allow Russia an ever-creeping set of rights over Georgia, leading eventually to its incorporation into the empire. Part of the wall still stands in Sighnaghi, which is mainly what we came to visit. It was certainly cool to walk on the wall—I mean, anyone who knows me knows that I love to climb on ancient walls—but it wasn’t anything that special. But the views were spectacular, for sure.

Over lunch is when the tour shifted from a “Kakheti history” tour to a wine tour. We started off by learning a decent amount about modern, practiced wine culture in Georgia. As I said, remnants of wine production have been found on clay shards dating back to 8000 years ago, so the Georgians have really had time to create a unique, interesting culture around wine.

Wine is central to all social aspects of life in Georgia—specifically, at large gatherings such as weddings. A toast is not just a few words said in honor of a bride and groom or in honor of your company; it’s a full-on speech, always, with many glasses consumed throughout. And the toast is also not begun by any regular member of the party. The Tamada begins the toast. He is a member of the community who’s purpose at these events is to manage the food, make sure everyone is happy, and, of course, to start the toast. Each village has its dedicated tamada(s), and everybody knows who those are.

The first toast is to God. The Georgians are, after all, deeply religious people. The toast usually includes expressions of gratitude for the land of Georgia and for the continued life of the Georgian people. They, after all, have been defending themselves against invaders from the north, south, and west for much of their history. Next is the second toast, which is for peace to be among the Georgian people, the newlyweds, and all in attendance. The third toast is for victory: gamarjos. Gamarjos is the word also for “cheers” here, and it literally means victory. The greeting here—the word for hello—is gamarjoba, literally, victory be upon us. I thought that was interesting, as many languages have their own independent word or some derivation of the word for peace, but here, it’s victory. Victory for the Georgian people, and especially, for the two of us.

Toasts will continue for dozens more rounds, and eventually, the tamada will give his spot for any guest to be included. He who delivers the toast, be it the tamada or a guest, will drink from a drinking horn filled with wine. After finishing, in one gulp, they must flip the horn upside down, on top of their head, and the number of drops that land on their head will be the number of enemies they will have. This is held over from pagan rituals that were just too deeply imbedded in Georgian culture to be released. The horn also doesn’t have a nice flat bottom to set down, so even if you can’t finish it in one gulp, there’s no putting it down!

During lunch, we all went around, emptying the vases of wine on the table with a fifteen-round toast—one delivered by each member of our tour group.

We left and headed for the winery. There, we got to see the process of making wine, including the vineyards and the fermentation area. In Georgia, fermentation is done in massive clay egg-shaped vases called kvevri. The kvevri has been around for as long as wine has been in the region, and still today, wine isn’t truly Georgian if it’s not fermented in a kvevri.

The heavy part of the liquid sinks to the bottom of the kvevri. From there, after the kvevri is emptied, that part is removed and distilled twice or three times to create a brandy called chacha. Chacha usually has some flavor infusion as well, and we tried oak, herb, and citrus infused chacha.

Left: Chacha bottles, Right: Kvevris in the ground

If I’m being completely honest, we tried a lot of wine and chacha by the afternoon. I can’t comment on each one’s properties because there were too many, and I started to get drunk by the end… Let’s just say that the portions of the tasting were generous. But it was really interesting to learn about the wine culture and just how deeply it is embedded in the soul of Georgia. After all, 1/8 of the entire world’s species of grape are native to Georgia, and they take their wine incredibly serious here. I’m really glad we had this chance to get out to Kakheti, as it really is one of the most iconic regions of Georgia from a cultural perspective.