Wine from the deep

Breakfast was on a lovely rooftop terrace with great views down to the area we visited yesterday, with its churches. The electricity went off just as we got out of the lift back down from breakfast. Lucky escape. Can’t imagine the claustrophobic horror of being stuck in a hot lift for hours. We had a lazy morning as we didn’t leave Tbilisi till 10.45.

We drove to a town Sighnaghi. We were told it was the Paris of Georgia and it did look pretty from the hills above. The others went for lunch in a restaurant but we had a picnic sitting among locals under shady cypress trees, then walked to see the whole long wall of names of those killed in WW2 as it is called here. (Great Patriotic War is too Russian). In addition to the thousands of names, there were beautiful carvings in the rock of villages and grapevines.

This is the region famed for the wine industry, in particular the Saperavi grape. 450 wine types are made with this grape, but the wines are different due to soil conditions.

We visited the Piradashivili family which had made wine in the same place for 600 years. They use 300 year old clay jars, which are reached by lifting a circular lid on the floor of the 16th century wine cellar. It was quite a challenge to manoeuvre round these. The older the jar, the more different the taste is. It’s all very special as (allegedly) the taste is the same as they had 8000 years ago. We tried both red and white. It was certainly very unusual. Our host had a mouth full of gold teeth - apparently in many of the stans during the Russian occupation this was done and called “investment in the future”.

Then we drove for our last night in Georgia in Telavi, stopping to see a 1000 year old sycamore tree, and a statue of the king who signed the treaty to have Georgia taken over by Russia in 1783.

We have very simple and charming accommodation in Rusiko’s guest house. 2 beds and a wooden chair, a small window with bug net and no aircon. It’s only 36 degrees!