Four days in the oldest wine region still working the old way. Two of the cellars you will stand in have no sign on the road and no card machine, and both have been making wine longer than the country has had its current borders.
- Alaverdi Cathedral an hour before the first coach
- A marani where the sixth generation is pouring
- Supra at a family table, with a tamada who means it
Day by day
- Day 01
Out of the city, into the valley
Leave Tbilisi after breakfast, not at dawn. Bodbe monastery on the ridge, then Sighnaghi: four kilometres of eighteenth-century wall with twenty-three towers, and the Caucasus on the far side of the Alazani. Dinner at the estate.
- Day 02
Alaverdi, then underground
An eleventh-century cathedral fifty metres to the vault, entered an hour before the first coach. Then two family cellars: the first pours what it sells, the second pours what it keeps. Supra at the second, with the family, for as long as it takes.
- Day 03
Tsinandali and the road nobody drives
The Chavchavadze estate, its English garden and the cellar under it, where the 1841 vintage is still lying down. Afternoon on a road with no bus route: guda cheese, a river, and nothing scheduled.
- Day 04
Home over the mountain
Back through the Gombori pass instead of the highway - an hour longer and worth it. Lunch at the top, Tbilisi by six, and whatever you bought is boxed and shipped before you land.
What is included
- Private car and your tamada for all four days
- All breakfasts, two supras, three lunches
- Cellar visits arranged by name, and every tasting
- Shipping of anything you buy, to any address
What is not
- Flights into Tbilisi
- Travel insurance
- Dinners on days three and four, if you would rather choose
The practical part
- Where you sleep
-
Lopota Lake Resort or Tsinandali Estate, two nights
A family guesthouse inside the Sighnaghi walls, one night
- When it works
- April to November. Late September is harvest: the cellars are working, which is the best and the busiest time to be standing in one.
- The pace
- Two to three hours of driving a day. Nothing starts before nine.
The Qvevri Table
One reply from a person, inside a working day. Nothing is charged until the dates are agreed.