Kakheti in the south-east is Georgia’s the most important wine region, almost three-quarters of the country’s wine grapes are grown here. Georgia is considered the birthplace of winemaking. The oldest evidence of ancient wine production goes back to 6000BC. To learn more about it we headed to the Kakheti region, making its capital Telavi, our first stop.
Telavi can be visited from Tbilisi as a daytrip, but we chose to stay, we certainly wanted to enjoy the famous Kakheti wine to the fullest. Before I travelled to Georgia I had read the highly prized book The Eigth Life by Nino Haratischwili, wine from Kakheti was an ever occuring element of the few scenes when life was good.
Museum at Shumi winery – the culture of wine making spread from Georgia
Traditional wine cellar -a qvevri is an egg-shaped earthenware vessel buried in the ground used to ferment grape juice to make wine
Which winery to visit is a touch choice, there are so many to choose from. We picked Shumi Winery https://winetravelawards.com/nominee/shumi/ and loved it. Everything was perfect, the tour through the little museum, our guide, the wine sampling, the food and above all, the beautiful garden. To get there you need to take a taxi, it is a short drive on the road leaving Telavi towards the east, the winery is right next to the road.
We were shown an traditional wine cellar with clay vessels buried in the ground, nowadays most wine is fermented in large modern stainless steel containers.
Shumi Winery – vineyard explaining the different types of grapes
Our guide taking us around
XXXX us through the wine sampling
Enjoying a glass of Tsolikauri
We stayed wie a lovely family who had a small winyard
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