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We get a lot of questions about our tours! For the most comprehensive answers, all the details are below. This document is a work in progress and we continuously add new things as new questions come in. As such, SOME SECTIONS BELOW ARE INCOMPLETE. CONTACT US FOR MORE INFO IF NEEDED.
A general summary of each tour to help you narrow down which is best for you!
Here’s a quick guide:
Still not sure? Browse our full tour list or email [email protected].
Plenty. We mean it. You will never leave one of our tours hungry or thirsty. Even half-day tours or our more cost friendly tours include a generous amount of food, and more than enough interesting wine to leave you feeling happy. Full-day tours include both lunch and dinner unless the tour description says otherwise.
Wine is typically free-flowing during the main meals of the day. At artisan wineries, pours are generous – think 100ml+ per wine, often with refills if you show enthusiasm. There will also always be food at every winery stop, even if it’s not a full meal.
We never pressure guests to drink more than they want to. A spittoon can be made available on request, not as standard at all locations. And because most Georgian natural winemakers use minimal or no sulfites, hangover risk is lower than you might expect – though we take no responsibility if you choose to test that theory and drink all the cha-cha!
Because a Georgian wine tasting is nothing like what you’ve probably experienced elsewhere. A proper artisan tasting isn’t a quick pour-and-move-on – you’ll spend 1 to 2 hours at each winery, tasting several wines, sometimes meeting the winemaker, eating food, and having conversations you genuinely don’t want to end. Guests regularly have to be ushered out the door.
If we crammed in 5 or more stops, we’d spend the day rushing between them and end up cancelling the last couple anyway. Two to four stops done properly is a far richer experience than six done in a rush.
In most cases, no – and if you read the above, you’ll understand why it would actually make the day worse. That said, there is an exception:
Note: wine tastings in Georgia are almost never free (except the very budget wine factories). Artisan producers charge for the experience, and rightfully so – you’re getting their time, their best wines, and their food. Doing more tastings doesn’t give you more bang-for-your-buck; it usually costs more for less. Also, unlike most markets, Georgians typically don’t host you in order to push wine sales – they make money to cover the tasting, sales are a bonus rather than the primary goal. Which also makes for a nicer experience!
Scheduled, shared tours are our flagship. These run on fixed dates with a maximum of 7-8 guests or 15-16 guests for our Real Rtveli & Vines & Views – plus a driver or driver-guide. The itineraries have been refined over years of experience and represent the best and most accessible (while still having many off-track/boutique elements) of what we do. If you’re new to Georgia, start there!
On-demand tours use one of our existing itineraries but on a date of your choosing and with an option to adjust the pickup location, depending on logistics (fee may apply). You can keep it open to other joiners (we can’t guarantee others will join) or make it private (a supplement may apply).
Private on-demand tours are available for any group size (2 minimum), on any of our fixed itineraries. Ideal for families, groups with specific requirements, or anyone who wants an exclusive experience. We can occasionally substitute wineries that fit the route and theme – this is most common for our repeat clients who maybe want to take new friends to one winery, but also try a couple of new ones themselves.
Custom tours involve significant planning beyond our standard itineraries. These come with an additional planning fee. If your group is fewer than 5 people, we cannot offer you a custom tour and recommend you book a standard itinerary (on-demand or shared) instead. More details are below.
Real Rtveli harvest tours are seasonal specials, typically with 7-15 guests. The harvest tours in particular sell out quickly – they’re some of the most memorable things we do.
Supra Tours are focused purely on the full, extra long (3+ hours) Georgian feast experience with polyphonic singing and a lot of toasts from the “tamada”.
Wine Explorers tours are specialist one-off trips to off-track wine areas, often places that have never hosted English-speaking guests before.
Scheduled shared tours: maximum 7-8 guests. Supra tours: typically 5-14. Vines & Views 4-15 people. Real Rtveli harvest tours: 12-16. Wine Explorers tours: 5-15 depending on the trip. Private tours: minimum 2 people.
For groups of 1-3 people, we use a sedan or SUV. Groups of 4-7(or 8) travel in a minivan. Groups of 8(or 9)-20 use a minibus. Larger groups travel by coach or in multiple minibuses depending on the route and requriements/preference.
If you’re the first booking for a date and it may not fill (like in low season), we won’t take a deposit until another guest joins. We’ll also try to match you onto an existing tour running on a nearby date. If you’ve paid a deposit and the tour ends up cancelled due to low numbers, you get a full refund – or we find you an alternative. More info for solo travellers below.
For shared tours, we generally don’t book guests under 18. This is partly because we can’t predict how other adults will behave after a few glasses of wine, and partly because some guests book wine tours specifically for the adults-only atmosphere and opportunity to use some “Australian” words freely. Teenagers aged 12-17 may join a shared tour under full parental supervision but we typically require consent from other guests that they are happy to have teens on the tour – some are not, and if they booked first we’d have to ask you to change the date or take a private tour instead.
For private tours, children are very welcome. Pricing (guidelines):
NOTE: All child discounts are estimated only – the exact price will always depend on the ratio of adults to children, the size of group and vehicle needed to transport everyone. Ie. a lot of children and less adults and wineries may need to charge more per child.
Booster seats: we can rarely provide these, but take no liability for their quality. We recommend bringing your own. There is currently no strict law in Georgia requiring booster seat use (as of 2026), though we do recommend it.
While many guests believe they need a custom itinerary, our standard tours are already optimized to feature a premier mix of boutique and family wineries. For groups of fewer than five, we prioritize our proven routes over “from-scratch” customization.
Instead of a fully bespoke itinerary, consider these flexible options:
Industry Professionals: if you are a wine professional with specific research goals, please provide your credentials and objectives. We can then recommend a “Wine Expert Adventure” or consider a specialist “Wine Explorer” tour for your small group.
We are happy to substitute specific wineries into our existing itineraries if the request is based on sound recommendations.
Great reasons for a substitution:
Sources we generally disregard:
Our founder has tasted over 10,000 Georgian wines and visited more than 300 wineries since 2016. We have spent many hundreds of hours quality-testing so you don’t have to.
Our Philosophy: If you describe your palate and preferences, we can match you to the perfect winery better than any algorithm or travel blogger. If you prefer to bypass our expertise and philosophy, we recommend hiring a private driver and guide independently of us and building your own trip DIY.
To ensure you get your preferred dates and experience, we recommend booking as early as possible. Because we work with small, artisanal vendors, our capacity is strictly limited.
To ensure a tour meets the 2-person minimum, we recommend checking our calendar for dates that already have existing bookings and joining those groups. However we always happily hold a space on a tour for you even if you are the first to book, and for low season we only take a deposit once someone else does book. For high season we rarely ever have to cancel, but for low season it’s good if you plan some flexibility to be able to join one of our other routes of dates in case no one else books your exact tour.
We reserve the right to cancel if the 2 person minimum is not met and you cannot switch, we will refund you in full.
Guides & Drivers
For groups of 2-8 people, we use driver-guides – experienced local Georgian guides who also drive their own vehicle. They have strong knowledge of Georgian wine and culture, and any gaps are covered by the winemakers and hosts at each location.
All our guides are native Georgian speakers with fluent English skills. We have a limited number of guides that also speak other European languages or Hebrew, but availability can be tricky and needs to be coordinated in advance – normally this means taking a private tour for your language group and additional fees where this is normally a driver + a guide.
For groups of (8 or) 9+ we provide a dedicated guide alongside a separate driver.
Sommelier-guides (qualified sommeliers who are also professional travel guides) are extremely rare in Georgia and available on request, with significant advance notice. Prices start from around 400 GEL per day per group. For most guests, they’re not necessary – our winemaker hosts handle advanced questions well.
Tommo, the company owner, leads our special Wine Explorers tours and some Real Rtveli harvest tours along with a local Georgian guide. He also hosts occasional wine tasting evenings in Tbilisi. His wife Megsy sometimes joins tours as social host – if she does, consider it a pleasant surprise rather than a bookable add-on.
Not through us. We’ve found that guest-designed itineraries frequently have logistical issues that require significant back-and-forth to fix – and often the bookings don’t go ahead anyway. Plus our guides are very busy with our own tours throughout the main season.
For a self-guided option with a driver, try GoTrip. Just know that drivers are rarely guides and may have limited English – even when they list “English” as a language, it can be basic.
We are a full-service, all-inclusive tour operator. Because our experiences are designed as seamless packages, we do not offer self-drive or independent transport options.
Here is why we maintain this policy:
The Bottom Line: Organizing your own transport typically results in a higher cost and a more complicated experience. To ensure your safety and the best value, we require all guests to utilize our provided transport.
We offer pickup at your accommodation OR a central Tbilisi meeting point, depending on the tour type. If you’re staying outside our pickup area, we can help you arrange and book a taxi to the meeting point.
Most tours depart from Tbilisi. Imereti tours depart from Kutaisi. Some Telavi and harvest tours depart from Telavi. In all cases, our guides and quality vehicles are based in the major cities – this is where the work is, and there are no quality guides permanently living in wine country – we’ve been looking for years! All the best ones move to Tbilisi or Kutaisi.
For Telavi tours, pickup in Telavi is usually possible since the group from Tbilisi passes through. For Signagi tours, it’s not practical – the group makes winery and sightseeing stops en route, so joining in Signagi means missing half the day. The best option is to taxi to our first winery stop (about 45 minutes from Signagi) and we can normally drop you back in Signagi at the end of the tour if notified at time of booking.
If you want to do a private tour starting and ending in Signagi, that’s possible – though demand is low so this is a private tour only.
If your hotel really is in Telavi or Tsinandali then we offer either hotel pickup by the tour van, or a short taxi transfer (included in the cost of the tour) if there are other guests from Tbilisi on the tour and your hotel is a detour off the route – this is just to make timings works as well as possible.
However there are a lot of hotels that “say” they are in “Telavi” but actually are just in the general Telavi region of north Kakheti (which is a huge area) and they are using the word Telavi as a convenient marketing term – a good example is Lopota Lake resort, while this hotel is lovely, not only is it NOT in Telavi, but it’s also on an access road way off the highway – sending our van to pickup there would add over 1 hour roundtrip to the tour so it’s not possible on a shared tour. We can pick you up by taxi (additional fee) or you can book a private tour where we pick you up (private supplement may apply and additional fee for extra pickup).
No. All our quality guides and vehicles are based in Tbilisi or Kutaisi. Our costs are the same regardless of where you join the van – the seat is reserved for you and no one else will fill it if you’re not sitting in it for part of the journey. In some cases where your joining point would be a significant detour from the route, we may actually need to book you a separate taxi (at your cost) to reach the group.
Georgia’s wine tourism market isn’t mature enough to sustain full-time quality guides based in wine regions. All the best guides – those with strong English, wine knowledge, and experience – move to Tbilisi or Kutaisi. This is simply where the work is and where they can demand the best rates.
That said, our Telavi Vines & Mountains tour, while it is Tbilisi roundtrip, is designed to also pickup and drop-off in Telavi or Tsinandali (North Kakheti). Our 2-day Wake Up in Wine Country tour has the option for drop off in Telavi at the end of Day 2 instead of coming back to Tbilisi. And our Signagi Vines & Villages tour can sometimes drop off in Signagi depending on the final winery location. Some tours have the option for us to coordinate a wine country taxi pickup or drop-off for you (additional cost).
72 hours advanced notice of any of these drop offs is needed or you may have to pay a taxi fee instead. Mention at time of booking.
Our suggestion if you want to spend time in wine country independently: depart on our tour from Tbilisi and ask to be dropped off at your wine country hotel at the end of the day. This saves the cost of a separate transfer out. We can also book a local taxi if your hotel isn’t directly on our return route.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer a discount for guests joining us outside our original departure points (Normally Tbilisi, but it depends on the tour). Our tours are designed as round-trips mostly starting from Tbilisi; therefore, the vehicle and guide are committed to the full journey regardless of where you board.
Since the fixed costs for the driver/guide’s time and the vehicle/fuel remain the same whether a seat is occupied for the full duration or only part of it, we do not have the flexibility to reduce the price for an empty seat. We are happy to coordinate a convenient local pickup point for you, or a local taxi (fees apply, but we normally offer this at cost price) but the tour rate remains the same.
While these locations might look close on a map, the Gombori Mountain Range creates a triangle between Tbilisi, Telavi, and Sighnaghi, making them distinct routes. In addition, Sighnaghi is an additional 30+ minutes detour from the highway and back.
Because our shared tours follow specific itineraries – often using the Gombori Mountain Pass, and not the highway, for efficiency – Sighnaghi is not “en-route” to Telavi or vice-versa. Diverting to these areas adds significant travel time, which we must balance with the schedule of other guests on the tour.
What we can offer:
Please message us before booking so we can look at the specific route for your date and see if a connection is feasible.
Wineries don’t normally host guests before 10am, and for meals rarely before 12pm. Because many of our tours are lunch AND dinner, we need to time your first stop to be lunch and then activities through the day to end the tour with dinner so meals are spaced out and you have room to eat the 2nd meal!
For Signagi the first winery is closer to Tbilisi, so later start, and some guests actually don’t like getting up early or are still jet-lagged so prefer the late start anyway.
For an early start option, Telavi is more driving distance and we get to go to the local food market in the morning before heading towards lunch, so the early start works for that. We also offer a “Short Signagi” tour private on-demand which can depart at 8:30am, do most of the activity and then have a big lunch before heading back before rush hour.
Being back for dinner is really not a consideration – unless you are doing one of the very short tours with a return time before 5pm, you will already have had your full calorie intake for the day and are unlikely to need any more food before breakfast! Unless you didn’t really eat the abundant food options during the tours.
Aside from winery and food service opening times affecting our itinerary timings, we also have to factor in traffic. Georgians don’t like early mornings and main rush hours are actually 8:45am to 10:30am. For this reason we get our guides into the city before the traffic for the 8:30am pickups, and then you are heading in the opposite direction to most traffic to head to wine country. Our late start tours then pickup just after rush-hour.
For private tours, we can start during rush hour but most guests prefer more time doing activities rather than sitting in traffic.
Return times are also optimized to mainly get back after evening rush hour – which starts to fade out at 8pm. Please note, Fridays can be a little longer rush hour, and Sunday nights there can be heavy traffic coming back from wine country especially during harvest season.
Hitting rush hour on the way out AND the way back can add over 1 hour to the total tour duration – this is why we try to avoid it.
Three main reasons. First, distance: the main Kakheti wine areas are 2 hours from Tbilisi each way, which already accounts for 4 hours of driving on a day trip. Second, the experience: a proper artisan winery visit takes a minimum of 1.5 hours (see the food and wine section above), and often longer once food and conversation are factored in. Third, geography: Telavi and Signagi are an hour apart within Kakheti, which is why we focus on one or the other rather than both on a single day.
Shorter budget tours (around 8 hours) cut corners to fit the time: tourist restaurant lunches, factory wine tastings with production-line service, quick photo stops. That’s not what we do, and it’s why we don’t offer tours structured that way.
Yes. We have a few alternatives for guests with limited time:
It’s a lot of driving and we don’t recommend it. A 2-day tour gives you far more time to breathe, explore, and enjoy the wines properly. The new Kakheti highway reduces drive times significantly, but this still doesn’t make a comfortable 1-day visit to both areas more viable. So, yes, tour companies offer this, but they typically disguise the fact that it’s a lot of driving, a bit of a rush, and you miss a lot of context. This is better only as a sightseeing tour and not a wine culture immersion tour.
Almost – around 90% of guests want Kakheti, especially first-timers. It’s Georgia’s most famous wine region and there’s a reason for that. We also run scheduled tours from Kutaisi into Imereti, Georgia’s second-largest wine region. Imereti wines are lighter and higher in acid, with less skin contact – a noticeably different style to Kakheti. See our full tours page for the additional off-track itineraries listed at the end of the page.
If you’ve already visited Kakheti with us, ask about our Wine Explorers tours or alternative on-demand itineraries with different winery selections.
We don’t publish a fixed winery list, for two reasons. First, small artisan producers sometimes can’t host at the last minute – we rotate between a carefully vetted selection to ensure consistent quality. Second, many of our best spots have very few online reviews (sometimes none) because they’re genuinely off-track – we don’t want guests dismissing them based on a lack of internet presence. We’ve personally visited over 300 wineries across Georgia and select based on wine quality, hospitality, food, consistency, and authenticity.
If knowing the wineries in advance is a dealbreaker for you, email [email protected] and we can discuss. Just bear in mind that no winery on our tours is guaranteed until the day itself.
Substitutions from our vetted alternatives are normally only possible if you’ve already taken one of our Kakheti tours, use the on-demand booking form and select ‘alternative wineries.’ For private tours we can sometimes substitute if the options you request fit logistically – be aware we get many requests from guests asking for places that are hours apart – sometimes even in totally different regions! Don’t assume AI is giving you accurate info, or that google maps listings are accurate. Georgia is not as well documented as major wine destinations.
Requesting specific wineries that we don’t currently work with is a different matter. We won’t visit places that don’t meet our quality standards, even when guests request them (there are a few very well known places that are great at marketing and sales but fall very short on wine quality and hosting). If you have a personal reason for visiting a specific winery (you’ve tasted their wines at home, for example), let us know and we’ll consider it – but we’ll always be honest if we have reservations about the experience.
Our tours are wine-focused. If wine isn’t a central interest for your group, we’re probably not the right fit. Submit a custom tour request (5 people minimum) and we can connect you with a partner company that specialises in hiking, sightseeing, and adventure tourism in Georgia.
Because the experience is fundamentally different. Budget tours keep costs down by cutting corners: tourist restaurants, free factory wine tastings with production-line service, minimal time at each stop, PAYG extras like lunch. Our tours include genuine artisan hospitality, time with the winemakers in person at some stops, all food and wine included (real all-inclusive!), expert guides, and quality vehicles.
Our margin is roughly 5-25% on top of the actual cost of goods and services. If you spent years researching Georgia, building the contacts we have, and booking everything yourself, you could do a similar trip for 5-25% less. We’d argue the convenience, expertise, and quality control are worth it – and our guests consistently agree (overwhelmingly 5-star reviews).
We also pay our vendors fairly. We don’t negotiate suppliers down to the lowest possible price. We choose quality first, every time.
Some of our Scheduled tours are a fixed per person price, no matter how many join.
Some of our scheduled tours are priced per person (cheaper the more people book), based on the total number of guests sharing the vehicle. The start price shown on the booking page is based on a full vehicle. When you select your date and number of guests, the price adjusts to reflect how many people are already booked.
As more guests join, the per-person price can come down. We message you the final price 1 day before the tour. Note: we can’t guarantee the vehicle will always be full, so the maximum displayed price is what you should budget for, and getting the lower price is a bonus.
For a full-day tour with 5 or more people sharing, the normal minimum is 300 GEL per person. Below this, we’d have to sacrifice quality somewhere, which isn’t something we’re willing to do. True premium tours run from 400 GEL per person per day – but often a lot more if booking VIP tastings and a fully indulgent day. Our scheduled shared tours offer the best value – the itineraries have been built over years and are as good as it gets for inclusions to price ratio.
It should be noted that large groups (14+) can come in down to 250 GEL per person for a simple tour, but you are normally getting only a slice of the experience and not the real, full Georgian immersion at this price.
Ultimately if you want a cheap experience rather than the best, indulgent experience, then we are not the best fit for you as a tour company.
The artisan wineries we visit are often only hosting your group that day. They’re opening multiple bottles of wine, preparing food, and giving you their personal time – sometimes for just two people. Most small producers prefer a minimum group of 4 or 5 to make it worthwhile, and they charge a hosting supplement for smaller groups. We pass this on as fairly as possible.
We also have to balance our operational needs when choosing to put a guide out with a group of 2 when they could be with a group of 7 to 15, especially in peak season where we often run out of guides entirely.
For 2 person private tours, expect a supplement of approximately 15-25% above standard pricing. Most private tours have at least a small supplement compared to shared, but it depends. Prices are only final once confirmed in an email / whatsapp or final website quote.
Typically no. With our shared tours and standard on-demand tour itineraries listed online accommodation is not included as standard. The main reasons for this are firstly, most of those tours are 1-day. For the ones that are 2 or 3-day we’ve found that guests who choose to book our tours are coming to us with varying budgets. For some, our tours are a splurge expense to get the best food and wine experience, and they want to save money by staying in a budget guest house for ~70 GEL per night. For others they are 5-star all the way and are happy to pay 900+ GEL per night. If we forced an accommodation level in the middle (3 star) we’d alienate those looking for affordable options, as well as those wanting to go super premium and we’d massively cut interest in the tours.
If you are joining a multi-day tour then instructions on accommodation options is provided when you book, and you can select your own within the given zone. We have options at every price point and you can easily book them online or in some cases we can book them for you at a discounted rate.
For custom multi-day tours, our 7-day private group tours across Georgia, for instance, we typically arrange the accommodation on your behalf – because these tours are aimed at whole group bookings so everyone joining the tour is booking in advance for a package at the same price point and expectation of quality.
Generally not weather dependent. A large portion of the day is in the cellar, winery, dining area, so weather is not much of an issue.
Real Rtveli harvest tours are weather dependent (grapes can’t be harvested in wet weather). If this happens, we run a simulation tour with near-identical activities in its place. See the cancellation policy section for full details on Rtveli-specific terms.
We can and do cater for a huge range of dietary needs on a daily basis and almost all needs can fit within a Georgian diet!
Vegetarian dishes are very common in Georgia, and easy to cater for. Gluten-free is no problem though of course, sadly, you will miss out on khinkhali and khachapuri – Georiga’s 2 national dishes – but Georgia is known for make fresh crunchy corn bread (mchadi and chivishtari) which is also tasty. Dairy free is possible, even though Georgia is big on cheese there is still a lot to eat without dairy. But please note if you are celiac and have an adverse reaction to gluten, such that hospitalization may be needed, you need to warn us in advance but please understand that many places we work with a home kitchens and we cannot prevent small cross contamination.
Walnuts are very popular in Georgian cuisine and can be in a lot of dishes you may not expect (like homemade beans, veg pate (phkali). If you have a serious allergy you should always travel with an epi pen and ensure the guide or someone else on the tour is instructed on it’s use before you start eating – please advise us at time of booking if the allergy is serious or mild.
It’s important to note that Georgia is all about eating “family style”, so all dishes go in the middle and people share everything. Our guides can advise which dishes are not suitable. When people ask us “will I have enough to eat with my dietary requirement” it’s always a surprise – yes, there will be a lot of food, the only issue will be that you won’t get to try everything, but you will certainly not be hungry.
In the case of very restrictive diets we can sometimes struggle to get you much variety – an example is vegan when also being gluten-free. While vegan alone is not real issue, adding in the gluten-free on top is going to leave you eating potatoes, beetroot and grilled vegetables – if you have an allergy to onion or garlic or walnuts on top of that too then we may not be able to find you much to eat, sadly. But if you have that amount of restrictions, I’m sure you are already aware of the challenge and I assume you are mainly coming for the vegan wine – choose our Telavi vines & mountains tour to 100% avoid any non-vegan wine elements and enjoy all natural wine.
GEL (Georgian Lari) is the only currency accepted by the vendors we work with for buying wine, gifts, or anything else during the tour. You can withdraw GEL from any ATM and your driver will be happy to stop at one.
Tour payments are quoted in GEL. If we give you a USD or EUR figure, that’s for reference only – the final amount is always in GEL and may shift slightly with the exchange rate. We cannot except foreign currency cash on the day – in these cases we’d have to take you to a currency exchange, which will also delay the tour and potentially annoy other guests, as well as being worse fees than sending us a bank transfer in advance.
Paying by major foreign currencies in advance by bank transfer – or credit card where allowable – is the best way to avoid issues with payments. Contact us for information about options.
Regarding diplomatic discounts, as you may know this discount removes VAT.
Tour packages in Georgia are actually VAT-exempt already, and most small vendors and drivers are not VAT payers anyway. So for most of our tours, there is barely anything we could get you a discount on, unfortunately.
When we rarely visit one of the large wineries, if any of the locations can offer the discount, you’d need to negotiate that with them and take a rebate while you are there, we don’t have any way in advance to deduct from our fees for the tour booking itself as they would need to see your diplomatic card on-site and process you refund as we have not collected VAT from you in the first place. The guide can advise you while on-site which venues are VAT payers.
Full details will be sent in your booking confirmation, or sometimes it is collected during the online booking process. Card payments and bank transfers are the options for making payment. We typically do not accept Paypal as the fees are horrendous, if you need to pay by Paypal we add an 8% processing fee.
Tours cannot be confirmed and your spaces cannot be held without a deposit. Due to being a small company working with small vendors, no-shows on tour days, or cancelling at the last minute when we cannot fill your spaces, has a real economic impact on our ability to run the company. No Deposit, no booking. If we do not receive the deposit in a timely manner we cancel your seats.
If you are having issues paying the deposit (card payments to Georgia can be tricky from some countries) then please contact us asap for assistant.
Cards from USA, Canada and india are particularly affected as they seem to fail the 3DS security systems used by processors here an in Europe. But cards from any country can sometimes be rejected due to over-cautious fraud detection.
Common solutions:
Processing card payments for small companies like us is a bit of a challenge in Georgia. While massive corporations like booking com or Viator have international processing systems for their vendors, we don’t have the same options available (Stripe is not available to Georgian businesses, for example).
We are working to slowly build our bank profile to get much higher card payment limits, but it takes years.
We mainly don’t accept large payments by card due to banking limitations:
Why we typically avoid PayPal for large payments:
In short, PayPal is expensive, slow, and very admin-heavy. We charge at least 8% fee to take Paypal payments.
Why we take bank transfers for large payments:
You will find all account details listed in the booking confirmation email in the payments section.
We also can accept cash payments on the day (balance only, NOT deposit) – and understand that some international customers actually prefer this as they too have issues using cards online or making international transfers
Thanks for your understanding, we also find the above issues to be inconvenient and a drain on company resources, but this is the reality for many small businesses in Georgia. We do not make it this complicated by choice!
We normally do not have a payment terminal in every van and with every guide – we are looking for options to start offering instant card payment in the van but its not yet a reality for us.
For guests who are also booking a tour with us, we can sometimes arrange transfers, particularly if they connect to a multi-day tour booking. For everything else, we recommend GoTrip for airport and intercity connections. There’s also a modern express train from Tbilisi to Kutaisi airport (with a short taxi into town) and to Batumi.
It should also be noted that most of our Kakheti tours go past the airport both in the morning and on return, so we often can pick up from the airport or one of the nearby hotels, but please check at time of booking to avoid issues or fees. For airport pickup we need to confirm your expected arrival time in advance and we will need to take full payment (non-refundable) in case you miss the tour start. For drop-off please confirm flight departure time in advance as the tour times listed on our website can finish late sometimes, or certain days of the year have very bad traffic coming back and that may make a timely drop off impossible on a shared tour.
Shipping is a bit of a hassle for small batches – if doing a palate of wine, that’s one thing, or a few bottles (then take in your suitcase). But if you wanted just a couple of cases you end up shipping with Fedex or something and the price is ludicrous.
So generally the wineries themselves don’t offer a shipping service on small orders. And the very small wineries are mainly not set up for this at all. Some may be willing to send you a case to be helpful but the cost for this is rarely economical.
Some wineries have international distribution in certain markets and may have there wines stocked in some specialist shops and occasionally with online local sales in your country – but when you are dealing with small wineries that make less than 10,000 bottles a year, and even with the larger places we sometimes visit who make less than 200,000 bottles per year, if they have international distribution it may only be in 1 or 2 countries and we don’t have a complete database of every country every winery has distribution.
If you live in the EU you may want to check out 8000 vintages Berlin (Georgia’s first full Georgian owned big wine shop in the EU) – they ship Georgian wine across Europe for a flat fee and it’s very reasonable. Georgian Wine House in the USA has a moderate artisan selection and ships nationwide. For other countries, there are specialist shops and an AI search may reveal some options.
In general we suggest planning to pack a few bottles of wine per person in your suitcase, and speaking to the wineries when there about any international purchase locations for your country.
We truly hope that we exceede your expectations while on tour with us and that you now have amazing memories of Georgian hospitality, and food & wine, to take home with you.
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We strongly recommend it for all guests – and please note that as of January 2026, travel insurance is a legal requirement for all visitors entering Georgia. The company is not liable for flight delays or cancellations, visa issues, illness, lost luggage, or any expenses arising from circumstances outside our control. If you become ill during the tour, all medical costs are your responsibility. We can provide invoices for insurance claims.
Eat This! Tours carries 3rd party liability and professional indemnity insurance on behalf of our guides / drivers etc. If we are proven at fault claims may be made against this – but this will not cover you if you “drank too many wines and tripped over a rock”.
Generally, No.
in most cases we can organise a cake at one of the stops – this almost always incurs a fee between 30 and 70 GEL per cake, and often the cake is homemade by the family. Its typical in Georgia for celebrations at a restaurant to “bring your own cake” and the restaurants themselves, especially in rural areas, cannot provide cake service – but families are more likely to help out with this. For logistical reasons we cannot stop to pickup a cake, so in cases where the family cannot produce one, you may need to bring one with you in the morning. There are many cake shops in Tbilisi.
Information on cancellation and refund policy is here: https://eatthistours.com/terms-conditions-of-service/
