Telavi

Day 375 (July 8, 2019) – Telavi, Georgia

Rather than take a marshrutka to Telavi we opted to take a taxi. It was much more expensive, but with a taxi we could make some stops along the way. The road from Sighnaghi to Telavi goes right through fields of vineyards and we wanted to do a little bit of wine tasting along the way. Georgia is quite serious about their wine. This area around the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia has been producing wine for at least 8,000 years according to archaeologists and it’s still very much a part of everyday life.

Our last stop in Sighnaghi before heading to Telavi by taxi.

Our first stop was at Winery Khareba. Their claim to fame is having a nearly 8 km long tunnel cut into a mountainside where they store and age their wines. The wine tour took us into the chilly caves where they explained how they produce their wines. They also demonstrated how wine is historically made in Georgia by kvevri. Rather than using stainless steel tanks, kvevri are giant clay jars that have been buried in the ground. While not all wine from Georgia is produced this way, the traditional stuff is.

Wine tasting in the caves of Winery Khareba.

Our next stop was Kindzmarauli Corporation Wine House. It was a much friendlier experience than the name might imply. They gave a really excellent tasting session where they sampled the same grape type but prepared in either the Georgian kvevri style or European style. They also took us on a tour of their facilities where they made large commercial quantities of wine. It was interesting to see their huge room of kvevri. You could only see the tops of them, but they go quite far down into the ground.

A room full of burried kvevri vessels.

Stainless steel vessels for making European-style wines.

Another interesting stop along the way was Gremi. It was a church and royal citadel complex from the Kingdom of Kakheti from the 16^th century. It was a nice stop because we could go inside the small citadel and explore. It was technically a museum, but really it was just an entrance into the old building. There were some great views from the top. Being both the main church in town and the royal residence there was, of course, a winery attached. This is Georgia, after all. The crazy part is that they still make wine there today and we did a sampling from wine fermented in the same kvevri containers that were used in the 16^th century.

The view at Gremi. 

Ruins of old kvevri vessels at Gremi. There are a set of better preserved ones that are still making wine today. 

After a long day, we finally arrived in Telavi. Telavi didn’t have nearly the charm of Sighnaghi, so perhaps our last guest house was being honest with us when they said we shouldn’t go there, but we still had a good time. The highlight was by far our guesthouse. We were staying inside an enormous house. There were probably five or six rooms for rent inside this house, but we were the only people there and we had the whole place to ourselves which made for an interesting experience. Our host also cooked us dinner a couple times. It was so great to have a home cooked meal. There was always a salad, bread, lots of vegetables, and a pitcher of homemade wine. One night the main course was a chicken stew and the other night we had stuffed cabbage. We really enjoyed those meals.

Dinner from our guesthouse was delicious. Stuffed cabbage, a huge selection of vegetable dishes, bread, and a pitcher of homemade wine.

The view from our room in Telavi. 

The town of Telavi wasn’t much to look at, but we still walked around everywhere. It’s definitely a city where people work, shop, and live, as opposed to being a town for tourists. In the center of Telavi is a set of castle ruins called Batonis Tsikhe that was nice to walk around. This was of the same time period as Gremi and a part of the Kingdom of Kakheti. One of the nice things about walking around anywhere in Telavi was that there was always a view of the nearby mountains. For being such a sizable town, there didn’t seem to be all that many restaurants around. Fortunately, the few that we found were all quite good. We continued to explore Georgian cuisine through dishes of baked mushrooms smothered in cheese, beans cooked in a pot, huge salads topped with cheese, olives, and tomatoes, eggplant wrapped around walnut paste, and a huge cheese and butter-filled khachapuri. And there was always wine on the table too.

Another amazing Georgian lunch. Salad, eggplant with walnuts, and a cheesy and buttery adjaruli khachapuri.

The streets around Telavi.

Inside the ruins of Batonis Tsikhe.

With all the amazing food and wine we enjoyed over the past five days, combined with the scenery of mountains and valley farmlands everywhere, I’m counting our trip to Georgia’s wine region a success. The next stop on our itinerary was going to take us up into the Caucasus Mountains that we kept seeing off in the distance from everywhere.