Best Wineries in Georgia: Prices, Tastings, How to Visit

Georgia has hundreds of wineries that take visitors, and they are not the same kind of place. At one end is a family with six qvevri buried in the yard, a table under the vines and a grandmother who will not let you leave hungry. At the other is a company bottling a million and a half bottles a year with a ticket desk and a gift shop. Both are worth seeing, for different reasons, and the mistake most people make is doing only one kind.

This page names the cellars and wineries we would send a friend to, says what each charges and how to book it, and covers the part that decides whether the day works: how you get between them without driving. Every price was read in September 2026, from the winery's own site where it publishes one and otherwise from recent visitor reports; the sources are in the text. If you have not chosen a region yet, start with our wine regions guide and come back.

How to choose

Kakheti, east of Tbilisi, grows about 70 percent of the country's grapes and has most of the wineries that are set up for guests, so that is where a first wine trip belongs. Within it, the useful split is not by village but by type of visit. Decide how many of each you want, then pick names from the lists below.

Our order, if you have the time: a wine bar in Tbilisi first, to find out whether you like amber wine before you sit through three hours of it; then one large winery for the overview; then family cellars, which are the reason to come. For what qvevri and amber wine are, read the qvevri guide; this page assumes you want to go and drink some.

Family cellars in Kakheti

These are homes as much as businesses. Expect a walk through the vines or the marani, wine poured by the person who made it, and more food than the word "tasting" suggests. Most of the ten below make their wine on the property; the last is a restaurant and is here because everyone asks about it. The list starts on the Tbilisi side and works east. It draws on wander-lush's May 2026 survey of Kakheti wineries, with prices and hours from the wineries' own pages where they publish them.

Big wineries and estates in Kakheti

The large producers are open all year, run tours through the day and do not need a reservation. You will be in a group, the script is polished, and the wine is made in steel and oak as well as clay. That is the point of going: it is the other half of how Georgian wine is made, and it puts the family cellars in context. One of these per trip is enough for most people.

The geography makes the pairing easy. Tsinandali Estate and Shumi are in the same village, a short drive from Telavi, with Shalauri, Akido and Ghvardzelashvili's Marani on the same side of the valley: that is one day. Khareba and Kindzmarauli Corporation are both in Kvareli on the far side of the valley, with Wine Yard N1, TEMI at Gremi and Nelkarisi near Nekresi around them: that is the other. The Kakheti road trip lays the two days out with the monasteries in between, and the Kakheti guide covers the towns.

Kartli, an hour from Tbilisi

Chateau Mukhrani is the answer when you have half a day. It sits in Mukhrani village, 44 km and about 50 minutes from Tbilisi, around a palace designed in 1873 for Prince Ivane Bagration of Mukhrani, the general turned landowner who built a large winery on the estate in 1876 with French and Georgian specialists. A company founded in 2001 revived the estate, and it is now the closest thing Georgia has to a European chateau visit: gardens, barrel cellar, restaurant, and wines in a European style from Kartli grapes such as Goruli Mtsvane, Shavkapito and Tavkveri alongside Saperavi and Rkatsiteli. It is open daily from 10:00 to 18:00. On the booking platform the estate sells through, a tour with four wines was 70 GEL (about $27), a seven-wine class 145 GEL and a wine and food pairing 193 GEL when we looked on 17 September 2026. That is double the Kakheti price, and you are paying for the setting. It combines well with Mtskheta, which is on the way.

Iago's Winery in Chardakhi, in the same valley, is the opposite experience. Iago Bitarishvili farms two hectares of 60-year-old Chinuri vines, was the first in Georgia to get organic certification, in 2005, and makes about 10,000 bottles a year in qvevri, all of it exported. Visits are personal tours led by Iago, two to three hours with the vineyard, the marani and a tasting served with home cooking, booked ahead by email through the winery's site. If you care about natural wine, this is the Kartli stop; if you want lawns and a wine list, go to Mukhrani.

Imereti, Racha and beyond

Western Georgia makes a different wine: paler, fresher, lower in tannin, because Imeretian winemakers put only a small share of the skins in the qvevri. The cellar to know is Baia's Wine in Meore Obcha, in the Baghdati hills south of Kutaisi. Baia Abuladze was on Forbes' 30 Under 30 Europe list in 2019, and the family makes Tsitska, Tsolikouri, Krakhuna, Otskhanuri Sapere and Aladasturi. Tours and rooms are booked by WhatsApp on the number on the winery's site, and its own directions are worth repeating: stay on the asphalt road to Obcha and follow the signs for the Baia Abuladze cellar, because map shortcuts end on farm tracks. Other family cellars cluster around Terjola and Baghdati; your Kutaisi guesthouse will know one.

Racha, in the mountains north of Kutaisi, is the home of Khvanchkara, the semi-sweet red from Aleksandrouli and Mujuretuli grapes. There are no big visitor wineries; you taste it at guesthouses and small cellars around Ambrolauri and Oni, as part of a trip you are making for the scenery. Further afield, the Bolnisi area south of Tbilisi has 19th-century cellars built by Swabian German settlers, and the village cellars around Keda in upper Adjara work as a day out from Batumi.

Tasting in Tbilisi

You can taste across the whole country without leaving the capital, and it is the best preparation for a winery day. Vino Underground at Galaktion Tabidze St 15 in Sololaki is the original natural wine bar, a cellar pouring small producers by the glass, open from 15:00 to 23:00 Sunday to Thursday and 16:00 to midnight on Friday and Saturday. 8000 Vintages, with a branch at Tabukashvili St 27 off Rustaveli, is a shop and bar with glasses from 6 GEL and an hour-long sommelier tasting of four wines at 55 GEL a person for two to five guests, daily from 13:00 to 18:00 by reservation. The wine bars guide has the rest, and the restaurants guide lists the wine restaurants.

Getting there

The rule first: whoever drives does not taste. Georgia's blood-alcohol limit is 0.03 percent, which one family-cellar pour will pass, and the penalty is a licence suspension of six months to a year. A rental car is a fine way to see Kakheti's monasteries and a poor way to visit its wineries, unless one of you is happy with grape juice.

Marshrutka plus a local driver is the cheap way. Vans leave Tbilisi's Samgori terminal for Telavi (12 to 15 GEL) and Sighnaghi (15 GEL), and any guesthouse will arrange a driver for a winery circuit at about 70 to 100 GEL a person for the day. The catch is that guesthouse drivers tend to know the big names, so give them the cellars you have booked.

A GoTrip driver from Tbilisi is what we use when we want our own route. You set the stops, the price is fixed per car before you book, and waiting time at each stop is included. On 17 September 2026 the cheapest cars were 141 GEL to Telavi (93 km), 191 GEL to Sighnaghi, 206 GEL to Kvareli (143 km) and 91 GEL to Mukhrani (44 km), one way. Build a return route with your cellars as stops and put their names in the booking note.

A group day tour is the no-planning option and the cheapest per head if you are alone. They leave Tbilisi in the morning, stop at Sighnaghi and Bodbe, and visit two or three cellars, usually the larger ones. Lunch is often extra: one listing below quotes 45 GEL for it.

What it costs

A full Kakheti day for two with a guesthouse driver, one big winery and two family cellars comes to roughly 290 to 550 GEL (about $110 to $210) before bottles: 140 to 200 for the driver, 70 for Khareba, and 80 to 280 for the cellars, depending on whether one of them is feeding you a full meal. The pieces:

Bottles at the cellar door are the souvenir worth carrying. Ask the winemaker to pack them for a flight, and check your own country's duty-free allowance before you buy a case.

When to go and where to sleep

Late September and October is rtveli, the harvest, and the best time to be in a family cellar: grapes coming in, qvevri being filled, long tables afterwards. Several cellars on this page sell a harvest day; Giuaani lists picking and pressing at 70 GEL a person. May and June are green and mild. July and August in the Alazani valley regularly pass 35 C, which is not tasting weather. In winter the large wineries carry on as normal, while many small cellars stop taking guests, so message before you plan around one.

Stay at least one night. Telavi is the practical base, with guesthouse rooms for two at 60 to 75 GEL in September 2026, and Sighnaghi the prettier one. If you want to sleep among the vines, Giuaani has its own hotel, and two places we have stayed at and rate are the Radisson Collection hotel on the Tsinandali Estate, where the museum and cellar are a walk from your room, and Lopota Lake Resort near Napareuli, on its own lake under the mountains. Neither is cheap; both are worth it for a night.

Mistakes to avoid

Driving yourself. The limit is effectively zero and the pours are not. Pay for the driver.

Turning up unannounced at a family cellar. Nobody may be home, and if they are, you have just made someone cook for strangers at no notice. Book.

Five wineries in a day. After the third you remember nothing, and you have rushed the hosts who most wanted to talk. Three is the ceiling.

Only doing the famous names. A day of Khareba, Kindzmarauli and Shumi is a day of production tours. Swap one for a family cellar and the trip changes.

Expecting dry wine everywhere. Kindzmarauli and Khvanchkara are semi-sweet by design and Georgians love them. Try them as what they are, then go back to the Saperavi.

Eating breakfast. You will be fed at every family stop, whether or not you ordered food.