The place: the Alazani valley between two ranges#
Kakheti is eastern Georgia, and for wine it is most of Georgia: roughly 70 percent of the country’s grapes grow here. The Alazani river runs north-west to south-east along the foot of the Greater Caucasus, with the wooded Gombori range on the other side, and the vines fill the floor and lower slopes between the two. If I had one day to show someone what Georgian wine is, I would spend it in Kakheti.
Telavi, at 490 metres, is the capital, on the Gombori side of the valley. Tsinandali and Kisiskhevi are villages ten to fifteen minutes away, both inside the Tsinandali appellation. Kvareli, at 450 metres, is 35 to 40 minutes down the valley on the left bank, the home of Kindzmarauli. Sighnaghi, at 836 metres, sits on a ridge at the south-eastern end, walled by King Erekle II in 1762, with the whole plain below; Bodbe convent is two kilometres away, and the cellar village of Tibaani lies in the plain beneath the town.
Three places outside the cellars belong on any route: Alaverdi Monastery north of Telavi, whose 11th-century marani with qvevri in the floor was restored in 2006; Gremi, the 16th-century royal citadel on the Kvareli road; and Ikalto, the old monastery academy, where retired qvevri lie in the grass.
Terroir: red clay, river gravel and a hot valley floor#
The vineyards stand between about 250 and 800 metres. On the valley floor the soils are deep alluvial gravels and loams from the Alazani and its tributaries, where the volume comes from. On the slopes the soil turns reddish: iron-rich calcareous clays, the “cinnamonic” soils of the Georgian textbooks. Around Tsinandali the clays are richer in limestone, and it shows in the whites.
The climate is transitional continental: 30 to 35 °C through July and August, drier toward the south-east around Sighnaghi, with the Caucasus taking the northern cold. September settles at 23 to 28 °C; October, about 22 °C by day and 10 °C at night, is my favourite month here. Rtveli, the harvest, begins with the whites in early to mid September; Saperavi is picked through October.
Saperavi, Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane and Kisi#
Saperavi is the red, one of the few grapes anywhere with pink flesh, so the colour is deep from the start; the name means roughly “dye”. High acidity and firm tannin let it go three ways: dry from steel or oak, with black cherry, plum and a sour edge; dry from qvevri, denser and earthier; or naturally semi-sweet from Kvareli and Akhasheni. More in Saperavi and Rkatsiteli.
Rkatsiteli is the most planted white in Georgia. From steel it gives a fresh dry wine of green apple and quince; after six months on skins in qvevri it becomes amber, with dried apricot, walnut and a tannin like strong tea. Mtsvane Kakhuri, “green”, is aromatic, ripens early and partners Rkatsiteli in Tsinandali. Kisi gives pear, apricot and green tea and is the variety I pour for people who think they dislike amber wine. Khikhvi is the rare aromatic white worth asking for.
The Kakhetian method is why these whites taste as they do. Crushed grapes go into a buried qvevri with skins and often stems, ferment on their own yeasts, and stay sealed on the skins for about six months while the earth keeps the clay cool. Imereti in the west returns only part of the skins; Kakheti returns all of them. UNESCO listed the method as intangible heritage in 2013; the vessel and its Armenian cousin are compared in qvevri, karas and amphora.
The appellations: Tsinandali, Mukuzani and Kindzmarauli#
About 20 of Georgia’s protected designations lie in Kakheti; three matter most.
Tsinandali is a dry white: at least 85 percent Rkatsiteli with up to 15 percent Mtsvane Kakhuri, from the villages of Tsinandali, Vanta, Kondoli and Ikalto, between 300 and 750 metres; quince and hazelnut, and it ages well. Mukuzani is a dry red of 100 percent Saperavi from the Gurjaani municipality on the right bank; three years in oak is the tradition, not a legal requirement, and the best bottles are Georgia’s serious cellar red.
Kindzmarauli is naturally semi-sweet Saperavi from the left bank around Kvareli: fermentation stops with grape sugar left in the wine, and nothing is added. It is the wine Georgians pour for guests and the one Central Europeans expect to dislike; with churchkhela at the end of a supra, it makes sense. Akhasheni is its right-bank sibling; Napareuli, Manavi for Mtsvane, and Tibaani, the qvevri village below Sighnaghi, complete the short list.
Producers to know#
Pheasant’s Tears was founded in 2007 by the American painter John Wurdeman and the grower Gela Patalishvili; the cellar is in Tibaani, the restaurant and tasting room in Sighnaghi. Qvevri, wild yeasts, no fining or filtering, sulfur low to none, skin contact from a day to six months: the natural school at its most articulate. Taste the Rkatsiteli, the Kisi and Poliphonia, a field blend of more than a hundred indigenous varieties.
Schuchmann Wines in Kisiskhevi, founded in 2008 by Burkhard Schuchmann with the Telavi-born winemaker Gogi Dakishvili, puts both Georgian schools under one roof: the Schuchmann label in steel and oak, the Vinoterra label fermented on skins in qvevri and finished in oak. Several dozen hectares in the Tsinandali, Napareuli and Kindzmarauli zones, a hotel among the vines, and Saperavi made both ways.
Tsinandali Estate is where Prince Alexander Chavchavadze bottled a Saperavi 1839 in 1841, the oldest documented Georgian bottle; today a park, a house museum, an oenotheque of more than 16,500 bottles and a winery known for its Tsinandali PDO white. Alaverdi Monastery Cellar makes qvevri wine in the 11th-century marani; Teliani Valley in Telavi, founded in 1997, is one of the large classic houses. Okro’s Wines, a small qvevri marani above Sighnaghi, adds no sulfur at all.
What a day here looks like on tour#
We sleep in Sighnaghi or at an estate near Telavi, so the day starts in the valley. In the morning a small marani: someone lifts the stone lid, ladles from the qvevri, and I pour a steel Rkatsiteli beside the amber one so the method is on the table rather than in my notes. In the afternoon a classic cellar in Tsinandali or Kisiskhevi, tanks and barrels, then their qvevri line. Two schools, one grape, one day.
Lunch is the supra, and I plan the day around it. A tamada leads; you drink after the toast, not before, and glasses touch. The Kakhetian table is the meat table of Georgia: mtsvadi grilled over vine cuttings, khashlama, pkhali and khachapuri before it, and churchkhela with a glass of Kindzmarauli to close. Chacha comes after; it is polite to accept once. In autumn we pick and tread; in June we walk the Tsinandali vineyards before dinner in Sighnaghi.
Practical#
From Tbilisi, Sighnaghi is about 110 kilometres, 1 h 45 min to 2 h. Telavi is about 100 kilometres over the Gombori pass, about 2 h when the road is open; roadworks have lately forced a detour through Gurjaani, so I check the week before. Inside Kakheti, distances are short: Telavi to Tsinandali 10 to 15 minutes, to Kisiskhevi 15, to Kvareli 35 to 40, to Sighnaghi about 1 h 15 min.
The best months are mid-May to June, when the valley is green and the Caucasus still has snow, and mid-September to mid-October for rtveli. July and August are hot; in winter many small cellars are shut. Small estates taste by appointment; cash is useful in the villages.
Kakheti is the core of my Kakheti qvevri tour and the closing days of the Armenia and Georgia route, which arrives from Kartli. For your own dates, a private tour can give the valley a slow week.
