Georgia & Kakheti Tours – Eat, Drink, and Actually Meet the People Who Make It

Our full list of fixed itineraries is listed on an easily filterable and searchable list on our main Tours page at https://eatthistours.com/tours/ – here you can quickly browse the general information about all the tour routes we offer, and then get more information by looking at each individual tour page. On each page there are options for booking a shared tour (when available) or a private tour.

SHARED TOUR:
To join a shared tour, use the booking widget on any of our standard tour pages and select the shared tour option. Enter your date, number of guests, and other details. Your submission constitutes an actual booking in most cases, not an inquiry, so please make sure all details are accurate before confirming and submitting. If you only want to ask a question rather than book, please do not submit the booking widget – message us on WhatsApp instead.

PRIVATE TOUR:
For a private tour, select the private option in the booking widget on any of the standard tour pages. This means you will have your own vehicle and guide. This does not automatically include changes to the tour stops, though you do have more flexibility with timing during the day – however, meals and tastings are normally booked in advance, so if you arrive early or late the wineries may not always be able to accommodate you.

If you have specific customisations for any of the standard routes, it is better to send us a quick message on WhatsApp to explain what variation from the standard itinerary you require. Small adjustments that are within the itinerary route – as defined inside the tour pages – are sometimes possible if they work logistically. The price may vary if customisations are made.

CUSTOM TOUR:
Approximately 90% of all people who submit a custom tour request did not actually need a custom tour – they just needed a small adjustment to one of our fixed itineraries. Rather than spending time filling out a long custom tour request, if you are only looking for a 1 or 2 day wine tour it is better to look at our fixed itineraries on the website first. Our fixed itineraries are relatively off-track, specialist, and never going to large corporate tourist traps.

If you have already looked at our main itineraries and did not find one that works for you, pop us a message with your general requirements and we can let you know if there is an itinerary suited to you or if a custom tour is actually needed. Note that we can only offer custom tours for groups of at least 5 adults.

Multi-day (3+) extended tours:
If you are looking for a serious multi-day wine adventure, we do have options for groups of at least five adults. These are highly specific food and wine optimised trips that cover multiple regions of Georgia and explore a significant number of different wine styles and grape varieties endemic to the country. You can read more about those trips here: https://eatthistours.com/georgian-wine-explorers-multi-day-trips-for-serious-wine-enthusiasts-experts/

Yes! All the information about our corporate tour options can be found here: https://eatthistours.com/corporate-retreats-georgia/

If you have any additional questions or would like to submit a booking request, pop us a message on WhatsApp or by email and we will help you get a final itinerary and quote.

Yes! If your primary goal is a leisure trip but with a slightly more professional wine environment, we normally recommend taking one of our main itineraries – these cover all the bases (we designed all our tour routes with wine enthusiasts in mind; we do not do commercial or generic tours) – and we can make some small adjustments to the exact vendors visited to match your precise wine interests. Choose from our fixed itineraries and let us know which one you are interested in by email, and we can give you some feedback.

If your goal is primarily professional rather than leisure, we can set up tasting trips specifically for those looking to export wine from Georgia. Read more about our brokerage services here: https://eatthistours.com/wine-brokerage-georgia/ – you can submit the form on that page with your information and we will get back to you about options for your export trip. For these trips specifically, we can make tours for groups as small as 1 wine professional.

If you are a wine expert looking for a specialised multi-day trip beyond our fixed one and two day itineraries, take a look at our specialist trips here: https://eatthistours.com/georgian-wine-explorers-multi-day-trips-for-serious-wine-enthusiasts-experts/ – Note: these longer multi-day custom trips require a minimum group size of five people. If your group is smaller than this, it is better to look at our one and two day tours – we have a number of fixed itineraries, and we frequently have people book 3 or more 1-day tours to different areas during their time in Georgia.

The quickest way is our 10-second TourChooser quiz. Answer a few questions about your departure point, group size, and what you are after, and it will point you toward the tours that fit. Most people find the right tour in under a minute.

Not at all. Our tours are designed around food, people, and places just as much as wine. You will visit family wineries, sit down to proper meals, and meet the people who actually make the wine – no prior knowledge required. If you want to go deeper on the technical side, our guides are happy to oblige. If you just want to eat and drink well in a beautiful setting, that works too.

Generally no – and there are a number of good reasons for this.

The “Pheasant’s Tears Winery” listed on Google Maps in Sighnaghi is not the actual winery – it is a restaurant. They do not make wine there; they bring wine from their winery to the restaurant. The winery itself is about 40 minutes further past Sighnaghi, away from Tbilisi. Even if the additional drive time made it worthwhile, the winery generally only hosts group sizes of 10 or more people, which does not suit our small group experiences.

As for the Pheasant’s Tears restaurant in Sighnaghi: it is relatively rare that the winemaker or the American founder will actually be there in person. In our experience, service and hospitality are below average for Georgia. Some of the wines are a bit “too natural” for our taste, and we prefer to focus on natural winemakers with more consistent quality. This, amongst other reasons, is why they have a 4.2 rating on Google Maps (it was even lower previously). We typically take people to places with a 4.8+ rating.

Our team has tasted over 10,000 wines and personally visited well over 300 wineries since 2016. We carefully select the wineries on our tours based on deep on-the-ground experience and years of guest feedback – not based on what comes up first in Google Search or AI results.

It is important to remember that the internet is an echo chamber. The more people that do quick research and hear about the 2 or 3 wineries that bloggers have written about, the more bloggers come and write about just those places – even though there are hundreds of other wineries around Georgia offering more authentic and personal experiences. Our goal is to show you the lesser-known but most representative wineries of Georgia, rather than simply the ones you can easily find yourself online.

Sometimes. The majority of high-quality guides are based in Tbilisi because that is where most of the work starts from, so all of our tours initially depart from Tbilisi. Some tours, like our Vines & Mountains or Everyday Rtveli tours, travel directly to Telavi, so we can easily coordinate pick-up and drop-off in Telavi even when most guests are coming from Tbilisi. For most of our Sighnaghi tours, because there are interesting wineries and stops between Tbilisi and Sighnaghi, those wishing to depart from Sighnaghi normally need to get a taxi to meet the group at the start of the tour. We can sometimes include a drop-off near Sighnaghi at the end of those trips. Pick-up and drop-off locations vary between tours, so it is best to check the specific tour you are interested in.

It should also be noted that this is not unique to us – it is standard across most tour companies operating in Tbilisi and East Georgia.

If you are planning accommodation and an itinerary in advance, it is strongly advised that you check the tour routes and options before booking accommodation, and do not assume you will be able to join a tour directly from somewhere in Kakheti. Coordinating this can be difficult and will often mean spending more on a private tour with custom pick-up locations – especially if your location is somewhere other than Telavi or Sighnaghi.

Food, wine, transport, and guide are all included in the price – as well as everything else listed in the inclusions on each individual tour page, which can vary depending on the tour. You will not be handed a menu, asked to pay at a winery, or hit with unexpected charges on the day. The only extras are anything personal – souvenirs, additional purchases at a winery (like wine to take home), or tips for your guide if you would like to leave one.

Many of our tours include both lunch and dinner, plus a lot of wine tastings. It is rare for each person to have less than a bottle of wine’s worth available during the day, and often there is considerably more on offer. You are of course free to drink less if you prefer – there is no pressure – but there is plenty of wine available. Our supra-style feast meals are genuinely a lot of food. Even the ones we describe as smaller feasts are still a significant amount. People do not leave our tours hungry or thirsty.

Typically no.

All three are common stops on generic, budget tour routes. The visitor experience at these locations is production-line style – get you in, get you a drink, get you out – and there are often large buses in the car park. These are large winery operations set up for mass-market tourism, not boutique or specialist wine visitors.

Khareba Wine Tunnel is an interesting stop, but the actual visit to the Soviet-era history is quite brief and covers only a short segment of the tunnel, and the wine tasting features their most basic wines rather than their high-end range. We do occasionally visit here on special request or as part of a three-day or longer tour, where it can make an interesting short stop.

Kindzmaruli Corporation has some good wines in their premium range, but these do not normally feature in the standard wine tasting offered to visitors. They are most famous for their semi-sweet wines, which are primarily exported to Russia – a style of more interest to those already familiar with it.

KTW features some of the weakest wines found on any wine tour. Budget tours often include it because the tasting is free, not because the wines are worth tasting. The positive reviews it receives are largely from guests on those tours who are happy drinking cheap wine and are not focused on quality.

Private tours guarantee:

• Exclusive transport: Your own private vehicle, entirely unshared.
• Dedicated guide: A private guide focused solely on your group.
• Itinerary flexibility: Freedom to make minor adjustments during the day. However, since wineries and meals are booked for fixed times, last-minute changes may not be accommodated, and you will still be responsible for full payment.
• Personalised hosting: Individual attention at each location from the winemaker or host.
• Private tables: Your own separate space or table for every meal and tasting. (Note: On rare occasions, winery cellar tours may be combined with another group due to winery operational limits beyond our control.)

Private tours do not guarantee:

• Exclusive winery access: The winery remains open to the public. Unless you book a high-cost private event to close the entire facility, other guests may be on-site or in the same room, but your specific tasting and table will remain strictly private.
• The winemaker as host at every stop: We aim for a “meet the winemaker” experience (often including a hosted meal) at a minimum of one winery per day trip, which succeeds on over 90% of our tours. However, we cannot guarantee winemaker availability in every instance due to potential illness or scheduling conflicts.

Both options offer a premium, all-inclusive look at authentic Georgian food and wine culture. To use a simple hospitality analogy: our Superior tours are like booking a beautifully appointed, quality room at a top-tier boutique hotel, while our Signature tours are like upgrading to that hotel’s top-floor suite. (Please note this is just a metaphor for the level of inclusions – overnight accommodation is not included in our day trips!)

Here is how the two package levels break down:

• Superior All-Inclusive Tours: This is our high-grade baseline package. Operating in comfortable, modern, air-conditioned minivans or minibuses with careful drivers, these small-group tours (maximum 15 guests) feature highly curated stops, expert guiding, and a substantial fully inclusive meal (with many routes including lunch and dinner). You get a complete, generous, and uncompromised premium experience. Focused on 1-day and half-day trips.
• Signature All-Inclusive Tours: These are our landmark, deeply indulgent flagship itineraries (spanning 1 to 3 days). They command a higher price because they scale down the group size to a maximum of just 8 guests for a highly intimate atmosphere. They always include both lunch and dinner every day, a more indulgent selection of food and wine tastings, and focus on exclusive, direct hosting from the winemakers themselves.

Premium Authentic vs. “Luxury”
There is a distinct line between our Premium Authentic experiences and artificial luxury. A luxury approach in Georgia typically prioritises styled, highly modernised chateaus designed to project a polished “luxury identity,” paired with cost-prohibitive VIP vehicles that drive up prices without adding genuine substance. Our Premium Authentic approach focuses entirely on the Real Georgia – with occasionally just a taste of the more modern for balance. We pair modern, comfortable, air-conditioned transport, careful drivers, and elevated authentic food and wine. We focus on genuine hospitality rather than venues that just look fancy on the surface. Sitting down with a winemaker at their family table to hear them personally explain their wines feels far more premium authentic than any high-end, modern chateau restaurant meal.

If I book a Superior Tour, am I getting a basic or scaled-back experience?
Never basic! We do not offer low-cost, mass-market commercial tours. Every single itinerary we run is built from the ground up to be a top-tier package. With a Superior tour, you still get well-kept, comfortable transport, a dedicated expert guide, top-quality food, and exceptional authentic wines all day long. If a Signature tour is out of your budget, the Superior tour still delivers a generous, uncompromised premium experience – just a little shorter, less indulgent, and hence less expensive.