Georgia

Wine, Khachapuri and a Table that Never Ends

Georgia invented wine -- or so Georgians will tell you, and the archaeology largely agrees. Amber-coloured skin-contact wines fermented in clay qvevri buried underground have become a global obsession among natural wine lovers, but here they are simply how wine is made. The table, or supra, is the centrepiece of Georgian social life, presided over by a tamada who leads an endless sequence of toasts to everything from absent friends to world peace. Add boat-shaped bread oozing with molten cheese, spiced walnut sauces, and spit-roasted whole pig, and the Georgian table becomes one of the great culinary experiences of the region.

Mountains, Monasteries and the Great Outdoors

Beyond Tbilisi, Georgia rewards exploration with landscapes of almost theatrical grandeur. The Kazbegi region delivers snow-capped peaks, glaciers, and the photogenic Gergeti Trinity Church perched above the clouds at 2,170 metres. The Svaneti valleys, accessible by a legendary mountain road, shelter stone defensive towers and traditions unchanged for centuries. Skiers flock to Gudauri in winter while summer hikers follow trails through wildflower meadows and ancient forest, and in the western Imereti region, Kutaisi's Bagrati Cathedral and Gelati Monastery complex -- both UNESCO World Heritage sites -- attest to a medieval kingdom of remarkable sophistication.

The Black Sea Coast and Batumi's Improbable Glamour

Batumi, Georgia's second city, is a place of genuine surprise -- a subtropical seaside resort that transforms from a languid Black Sea beach town by day into a lit-up skyline of revolving restaurants and kinetic sculptures by night. The Adjara region surrounding it grows tangerines and tea in a subtropical microclimate that feels entirely at odds with the alpine world an hour's drive away. Georgia packs the kind of diversity most countries can only claim -- ancient and modern, mountainous and coastal, deeply traditional and bracingly contemporary -- into a country small enough to be thoroughly explored in a single trip.