Budget Travel
Caucasus
Ancient cave cities, the Caucasus mountains, and wine that costs almost nothing and tastes extraordinary.
The Forgotten Atlas — Field Report
Ancient cave cities, the Caucasus mountains, and wine that costs almost nothing and tastes extraordinary.
Georgia is one of the last great undiscovered countries in Europe, and the window of that discovery is closing. The food writers found it first, then the natural wine crowd, then the hikers, and now the rest of the world is starting to arrive. Go now, before the prices catch up with the quality. A country where you can stay in a guesthouse run by a family who will feed you breakfast, a three-course dinner with wine included, and bring you homemade chacha (grape spirit) at the end of the night for thirty dollars total.
Georgia is one of the great surprises in European travel. The food, the wine, the landscapes, the people — all completely extraordinary, almost completely unknown.
The Forgotten Atlas
Georgia invented wine. Not metaphorically — archaeologists have found evidence of grape cultivation and wine fermentation in Georgia dating to 6000 BC, making it the oldest wine culture on Earth. The traditional method — qvevri winemaking, where grapes ferment in large clay vessels buried underground — produces amber wines (white wine made with skin contact) that taste like nothing from any other wine region. Georgian wine is available in every restaurant and guesthouse for prices that would make French or Italian producers embarrassed. Drink as much as you can.
The Caucasus mountains in Georgia are the equal of the Alps in drama and a fraction of the cost to visit. Kazbegi, in the north, is the most visited mountain region — the Holy Trinity Church of Gergeti sits on a hilltop above the village with the 5,047-metre Mount Kazbek behind it. The Svaneti region, further west, is more remote: ancient stone defensive towers in every village, a landscape that has barely changed in a thousand years, and hiking that rivals anything in Europe.
Fly to Tbilisi. Spend three days in the capital. Take the marshrutka to Kazbegi. Go to Mtskheta. Then Kutaisi. Then Svaneti if you have the time. Three weeks barely scratches it.
Sulphur baths, carved wooden balconies, wine bars in converted Soviet spaces. The most atmospheric capital city in the Caucasus.
The mountain town. The church. The hikes. The views. Go immediately.
Medieval defensive towers, the highest villages in Europe, and a landscape that has remained unchanged for a thousand years.
The heartland of Georgian winemaking. Visit family wineries, taste from the qvevri, buy bottles for almost nothing.
The Georgian dumpling filled with spiced meat broth. You pick it up by the doughy knot, bite a hole, suck out the broth first, then eat the rest. Do not eat the knot.
Modern Georgian cooking in Tbilisi that takes the traditional cuisine and does sophisticated things with it. Outstanding.
Traditional Georgian breads — shoti, shotis puri — baked in a torne oven. The khachapuri here is a standard.
The natural wine bar scene in Tbilisi is extraordinary. Order a glass of amber wine and ask the bartender what else you should try.
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