The Georgia Wine Route

This is the one great wine route where a Quebec traveller arrives without bearings. The grape varieties appear in no Western textbook, the winemaking happens in buried clay jars, and the whites are not yellow but amber. That is exactly the point.

Why eight thousand years changes everything

Georgia claims the world's oldest unbroken winemaking tradition, and the archaeology of Kakheti supports the claim. What matters to a traveller is not the date but the consequence: jar fermentation was never interrupted here. Elsewhere it is being rediscovered. In Georgia it never stopped.

The qvevri — the jar that explains everything

A qvevri is a clay amphora, often holding several hundred litres, buried up to its neck in the cellar floor. Grapes ferment inside with their skins, their pips and sometimes their stems, for weeks or months. The earth regulates the temperature on its own. On white grapes the result is nothing like a white wine: maceration gives colour, tannin and a texture no stainless steel tank can produce.

Amber wines — how to approach them

Do not compare them to the whites you know. Compare them to a light red. That single shift changes everything: they carry tannin, they are served warmer than a white — around 14 to 16 °C — and they close up if served ice cold. Above all they are drunk with food. Skin tannins meet protein and fat in a way conventional whites cannot.

For a first encounter, start with an amber from Imereti, where maceration lasts weeks, rather than a Kakhetian macerated for six months. The step up is gentler.

Grape varieties you do not know yet

Rkatsiteli is the country's most planted white, and probably among the oldest cultivated anywhere. Mtsvane brings freshness and floral notes to blends. Kisi, rarer, gives some of Georgia's most complex ambers, on rose and apricot. Tsolikouri, from Imereti, is the easiest place to begin.

Among reds, saperavi is a global curiosity: its flesh is red, not only its skin. The wines it makes have an almost ink-like intensity of colour.

Where to go

Kakheti, east of Tbilisi, holds most of it. Sighnaghi, a walled village perched above the Alazani valley with the Caucasus behind, works as a base. Telavi is the region's main town. Imereti, in the west, makes lighter wines and receives far fewer visitors. The other great wine routes are compared in our guide to wine routes.

The Georgian table is half the trip

Khinkali, large purse-shaped dumplings held by the knot, pierced and sipped before biting. Khachapuri, cheese bread in a version for every region, the Adjarian one arriving boat-shaped with an egg yolk in the middle. Satsivi, poultry in a walnut sauce scented with coriander and fenugreek. Mtsvadi, skewers grilled over vine cuttings, whose smoke changes the taste of the meat.

And the supra, the Georgian feast led by a tamada who delivers the toasts in a set order. It is not a dinner, it is a ceremony, and declining a toast is noticed.

When should you go?

May, June, September and October. Summer is hot and dry in the Alazani valley. The harvest — rtveli — falls in late September and early October, and that is when families open their cellars. Winter is cold and the mountain roads become difficult.

How much wine can you bring home?

After 48 hours or more abroad, the Canadian personal exemption covers 1.5 litres of wine per adult — two 750 ml bottles. Beyond that you declare the bottles and pay the applicable duty and taxes, including the provincial portion collected at the border. The minimum age to import alcohol in Quebec is 18.

Organising the trip from Quebec

Tbilisi is reached through Istanbul, Warsaw or Vienna, a long day of flying from Montreal. On the ground the driving is assertive and the signs are in Georgian: hiring a driver for the Kakheti days settles both the transport and the wine question. French-speaking guides exist, but they book up ahead.

Voyages AquaTerra holds a Quebec travel agency licence. Our clients are covered by the Compensation Fund for Customers of Travel Agents, under the conditions set out in the regulation. Call an adviser at 1-866-628-6241. Tbilisi also appears among our hidden treasures of Europe.

For the country beyond the wine — Tbilisi, the Caucasus, the Georgian table and the official travel advice — see our guide to travelling to Georgia from Quebec.