Telavi is the capital of the wine growing region of Kakheti so of course the day included wine.
It's widely believed that Georgia was the first place to produce wine but during the Soviet Union Georgia amongst other countries were told only to produce sweet wine - and in large quantities - so it's just recently they started produce quality wine again.
We started with a nice guided tour at the Tsinandali Palace which has a nice wine cellar where we had a wine tasting of red and white wine.
Then we headed for a Gremi Citadel (today a church and a tower) which used to be part of a town with many markets, caravanserai (hotel) with swimmingpools and baths.
Of course the lunch had to take place in a winery - Twins wine cellar. Before lunch we were introduced to have they make wine which was quite interesting because there were no modern steel tanks but qvevris, handmade claypots, which is placed in the ground and then they add the grapes and after a while it separates into wine and chacha (grappa). We were so lucky to see them open a qveriv that day which doesn't happen that often since they contain several hundred liters and once they're open they have to bottle them or move the wine to a new qvevri. For lunch - once again fantastic and overwhelming - we tasted the wine and maybe they weren't too happy about making sweet wine to Russia earlier but their semi-sweet red wine was almost as sweet as sugar but they do still keep some of the wine on the very sweet side. The dry red was definitely the one to go for.
The day was rounded off with another visit to a very beautiful monastery and especially for Mikkel a great visit to some bee keepers at the monastery. We were told all about how they handle the bees and we tasted different of their honeys including ivy honey.
It's widely believed that Georgia was the first place to produce wine but during the Soviet Union Georgia amongst other countries were told only to produce sweet wine - and in large quantities - so it's just recently they started produce quality wine again.
We started with a nice guided tour at the Tsinandali Palace which has a nice wine cellar where we had a wine tasting of red and white wine.
Then we headed for a Gremi Citadel (today a church and a tower) which used to be part of a town with many markets, caravanserai (hotel) with swimmingpools and baths.
Of course the lunch had to take place in a winery - Twins wine cellar. Before lunch we were introduced to have they make wine which was quite interesting because there were no modern steel tanks but qvevris, handmade claypots, which is placed in the ground and then they add the grapes and after a while it separates into wine and chacha (grappa). We were so lucky to see them open a qveriv that day which doesn't happen that often since they contain several hundred liters and once they're open they have to bottle them or move the wine to a new qvevri. For lunch - once again fantastic and overwhelming - we tasted the wine and maybe they weren't too happy about making sweet wine to Russia earlier but their semi-sweet red wine was almost as sweet as sugar but they do still keep some of the wine on the very sweet side. The dry red was definitely the one to go for.
The day was rounded off with another visit to a very beautiful monastery and especially for Mikkel a great visit to some bee keepers at the monastery. We were told all about how they handle the bees and we tasted different of their honeys including ivy honey.
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| Tsinandali Palace - Laura and Malene |
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| Tsinandali Palace |
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| Gremi Citadel |
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| Twins wine cellar - qvevris with windows |
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| Opening a qvevri |
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| Lunch and wine tasting |
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| Old qvevris at the monastery |
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| Beekeeper |
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