The Gombori Pass

The road out of Tbilisi climbs through forest for the best part of an hour, and then, quite suddenly, the trees stop and the whole Alazani Valley opens up below you. On a clear day the Greater Caucasus range fills the horizon, and you can pick out the snow on the peaks toward Tusheti.

This is the moment most guests stop taking the drive for granted. It is a short stop, ten minutes or so, but skipping it is a mistake.

Alaverdi Cathedral

You see Alaverdi long before you reach it. At roughly 50 metres it was the tallest church in Georgia until Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral was completed in 2004, and it rises out of flat vineyard country with nothing around it to compete for scale.

It is a working monastery. The monks still make wine here in qvevri, under a label whose tagline reads "Since 1011", and there is an apiary at the front of the complex producing honey. Inside the defensive wall you will find the cathedral, a palace, an old bath house and a graveyard. Shoulders and knees need to be covered; wraps are available at the gate.

Batonis Tsikhe and the 900-Year-Old Plane Tree

Batonis Tsikhe, the "Master's Fortress", was rebuilt in the 17th century as the residence of the Kakhetian kings. It is Persianate in style, modelled on the Arg of Karim Khan in Shiraz, and the complex once held chapels, bathhouses and a royal palace. King Erekle II was born in that palace in 1720 and died in the same room in 1798.

Standing at the fortress wall is a single Oriental plane tree, around 900 years old, with a trunk about 12 metres around. It was already ancient when the fortress was built around it, and it appears on the city's coat of arms. Locals will tell you it takes a dozen people holding hands to circle the trunk, and they are not exaggerating by much.

The Telavi History Museum sits inside the same compound, built into the hillside with its galleries underground. It holds an unusually good painting collection alongside Kakhetian textiles, archival photographs of the wine industry, and antique qvevri.

Erekle II Street, Cholokashvili Street and the Bazaar

Telavi has some of the finest carved Kakhetian balconies anywhere in Georgia, and the two streets worth walking are Erekle II, which runs west from the king's monument, and Cholokashvili on the far side of the little Telavisrike river. Wooden galleries in turquoise and white sit directly beneath monolithic Stalin-era apartment blocks, which tells you most of Telavi's 20th century in one glance.

Then there is the bazaar. Telavi's market is known across Georgia for its size and its curved sheltering roof, and it is the honest version of what the wine estates package neatly: churchkhela hanging in rows, sacks of dried fruit and nuts, homemade cheese sold by women who will cut you a taste before you ask, adjika blends, and a hardware section that seems to sell everything ever manufactured.

Lunch, Kakhetian Style

Kakheti eats differently from Tbilisi. Expect mtsvadi grilled over grapevine cuttings, chakapuri lamb stewed with tarragon and green plum, and khinkali made mountain-style with a thicker dough. Everything arrives at once rather than in courses, which is the point.

We build the lunch stop into the day rather than rushing it, because the table is genuinely part of the tour here.

A Family Marani and the Qvevri

This is the part guests remember. A marani is a family wine cellar, and the qvevri inside it are enormous clay vessels buried to the neck in the earth. Grapes go in with skins, stems and seeds, and the wine ferments underground for around six months. The method is old enough and specific enough that UNESCO lists it as Intangible Cultural Heritage.

At the small family cellars around Telavi the owner walks you through it personally, then pours. A tasting usually runs to five glasses, and bottles are typically available at roughly half of Tbilisi shop prices.

Ikalto Monastery and Academy

Ikalto was founded in the 6th century by one of the Thirteen Assyrian Fathers, which makes it among the oldest monastic sites in Kakheti. The grounds are quiet and scattered with dozens of old qvevri in various states of mossy collapse, which is a strange and lovely thing to walk through.

Behind the churches are the ruins of the Ikalto Academy, founded in 1106 and one of the earliest universities in the medieval world. Shota Rustaveli, Georgia's national poet, is believed to have studied here in the 12th century. Three teaching halls survive: theology, philosophy, and winemaking. Viticulture was, quite literally, an academic discipline.