Georgia in Photographs
I saw Georgia but for five days. I’ll love it forever, and will forever wish to return. This is a photo-essay of a brief journey into Georgian wine.
As they say in Georgia, “we are the oldest wine culture in the world, and the newest”. The former because wine has existed in Georgia for 8000 years. The latter because the wine world is still discovering its rightful place as the home and heartland of wine.
The 2025 harvest in Georgia’s Kakheti wine region started earlier than expected. There was a rush to get everything operational. This is a picture of an imposing Georgian worker getting the necessary hoses connected at the Tbilvino winery. We are standing on the top of a stainless steel tank farm here. (And yes, they do have tank farms in Georgia).
Inside Stalin's Wine Cellar in Tbilisi. There’s no access to the cellar so this image is shot through the iron gates, which you can see in the foreground. There’s an incredible volume of wine stored here and some, err, noteworthy labels on display too.
You never know how people will react to you taking a picture of their house. It's hard to describe to a stranger, especially in a foreign country, that you just love taking pictures of buildings.
Anyway, I was wandering about in Tbilisi, taking pictures of houses, early-ish, a Saturday morning. I was photographing this house when a man rushed out, stepped in my direction, and looked straight at me. I'm a scaredy-cat and so I was instantly apprehensive. I said, Sorry, and lowered my camera.
As soon as I did, he called across the street to me, Why you not take photo of me?
You want photo? I said.
He nodded.
So I took a photo. And then changed the angle and took a few more. I was very, genuinely, ridiculously happy to take his photo. And when I finished, he looked very happy too.
Just two happy old dudes.
It was only when I got back to my computer that I noticed that he was holding a hot water jug, with the lid open. He was wearing no top, and holding a hot water jug, and a smile. He'd unplugged the jug and rushed out into the street, as you do.
Historic Qvevri, the famed Georgian clay amphora.
1/ Funny thing to say but the Stampa Hotel in the centre of Tbilisi is worth visiting on multiple occasions, whether you stay there or not. I didn’t stay at the Stampa Hotel on any nights of this trip and yet I visited it on three or four occasions. It’s an ex-Publishing/Printing house. I can’t explain why except to say: it’s a must-visit.
2/ Tbilisi invented street character and characters.
Nino Gvantseladze, GM of the Ori Marani winery. This was taken at the N1 Winery, home of many things including Stalin’s Wine Cellar.
Downtown Tbilisi in 2025; historic quarter.
Nino Kakutia standing beside a bath filled with clay qvevri. Tiled floor, carpet walls, colour, wonderment, amphora, wood and steel. Nino, a sommelier, is the force behind Lobster PetNat (@Lobster.Petnat), a producer who specialises in multiple variations of Pétillant Naturel.
The office building at the Teliani Valley winery. Big love for this building, on my behalf. So magnificently austere.
Wooden pallets at the Teliani Valley winery.
Downtown Tbilisi in 2025; historic quarter. The ATM, the drinks chest, the rusticity, the sun. Peak Georgia.
A truck comes to be weighed at the Tbilvino winery in the Kakheti wine region. And is, later, weighed on the way out.
A worker at the Tbilvino winery walks towards the weigh station.
After delivering the grapes, the truck parks to take the grape stalks and stems away. Vineyard and display of historic amphora in the background.
Grape stalks and stems going up the conveyer to be dropped into the blue truck outside.
It’s not all qvevri in Georgia. There are modern wine facilities. These tanks are at the Tbilvino winery. Media/Trade group on the walkway.
Stalks and stems are delivered ex conveyer belt into the waiting truck, which is then re-weighed.
Incredible Soviet-era torpedo-like wine tanks at the Tbilvino winery.
Downtown Tbilisi in 2025; historic quarter. Georgian flag.
The ‘tunnel’ cellars at the Khareba winery. These tunnels – an incredible 7.7 kilometres in total length – were built in the Soviet era, and officially opened in 1962. The were built using the same equipment used to build the Moscow Metro rail tunnels, and are of the same dimensions. i.e. you could run a metro train through these tunnels. These tunnels are carved straight into the Caucasus rock massif. There are two main tunnels and thirteen connecting tunnels.
Unfortunately we weren’t, in Georgia, travelling in a “fried out Kombi”. But even in Georgia you have to keep the cool middle age dudes happy, and so there’s a Kombi parked at the Khareba winery. Khareba was far and away the most ‘touristy’ of the Georgian wineries I/we visited.
Racks of wine at the Papari Valley winery. Papari Valley is interesting in that it uses “terraces” – different levels of the winery – to gravity flow wine from qvevri to qvevri.
Portrait of Papari Valley winemaker Sandro Kurdadze.
Nothing to do with wine, everything to do with Georgia.
I loved the sight of this orange/red car at the Papari Valley Winery, and I love the often-seen Georgian flag on the dash too. I’m contemplating printing this image and putting it on my wall, just quietly.
Georgian winemaking legend Iago Bitarishvili, in silhouette. Iago is of course renowned for, and a champion of, amber wine – in his case, chinuri aged on skins and stems for 5-7 months. I love how amplified the amber colour of the wine is in this image; it was a fluke, but it’s perfectly apt.
Georgian winemaking legend Iago Bitarishvili, for the win.
A visitor inside the opulence of Chateau Mukhrani. (When I say visitor: it’s one of our Trade delegation).
Chateau Mukhrani is an incredible place. The wines are good, the chateau and scenery even better. It’s also popular as a wedding venue, unsurprisingly. There was a wedding ceremony in progress as we passed. There was no need to cue the violin as it had already been cued.
Downtown Tbilisi in 2025; historic quarter.
I couldn’t tell you where this is. It’s near the Peradze winery in the Kakheti region. It’s a good illustration of the hills that rise from the valley. We’re right near the river line here.
Old meets new. Qvevri and stainless steel tanks at the under-construction Peradze winery in Kakheti.
Layla's Plov House, Tbilisi, on the fringe of the old quarter. Fair to say that I love this image.
Georgian qvevri cellar tools leaning against a stone wall at a Georgian winery.
1/ I love these cars to hell and back and no, I don’t know what that blob of garbage is in the foreground.
2/ Liquor licence laws in Georgia sit on the more relaxed side. It’s possible to open a bar in the front living room of your house. And people do. This is yet one more reason why Georgia is seen as having the most integrated wine-as-part-of-life culture in the world.
One for the road. Worker hauls a red hose at the Tbilvino winery. Getting the hose to frame him like this was, of course, fluke.