Gurjaani Wine Festival

The largest wine festival in the Black Sea region draws 30,000+ visitors to Gurjaani in October. Kotekhi Gurjaani Wine Factory — built under the Soviets — won the IWSC Georgian Wine Producer Trophy in 2025 with a 97-point score. The same building that mass-produced industrial wine for Moscow now beats Europe blind. Chakrulo, the polyphonic song NASA chose for the Voyager Golden Record to represent all of humanity, comes from this exact valley. It is right now drifting past the heliosphere. Free shuttles run from Tbilisi.

What to do there

6 things to do

1. 1 Claim Your Glass and Enter the Largest Wine Festival in the Black Sea Region Adventure · Free

   Where: The main entrance to Akhtala Park, Gurjaani — a forested park built around volcanic mud pits at 412 meters elevation, 120km east of Tbilisi. The festival organizers run a FREE shuttle from Tbilisi specifically for this event (check winefest.ge for departure points — usually announced a few months ahead). This is extremely rare for a regional Georgian festival of this size.

   What: You're walking into the largest and most diverse wine festival in Georgia, the Black Sea region, and all of Eastern Europe. Not a marketing claim — 424 wineries and producers, 30,000+ visitors over two days. But Akhtala Park is forested and sprawling enough that if you arrive early (festival opens around 10am), the first hour is peaceful, golden, and yours.

   How: Pick up a branded festival glass at the entrance (10–15 GEL). This is your tasting vessel for the day. The park is organized into 10+ distinct zones — wine tasting pavilions, qvevri demonstration area, culinary pavilions, artisan market, and the main stage. Walk the perimeter first before you start tasting. Get the map, note where the qvevri zone is. That's your first destination.

   Backup: If the shuttle is full, marshrutkas from Tbilisi's Samgori or Didube bus stations run to Gurjaani for ~15 GEL (~$6). Journey is about 2 hours. The park is a 10-minute walk from the Gurjaani town center.

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2. 2 Taste 8,000 Years of Winemaking in One Amber Glass Wine · Price: low

   Where: The qvevri demonstration and tasting zone inside Akhtala Park. Look for the clay vessels — the egg-shaped earthenware qvevri buried in the ground. This is where the comparison happens.

   What: Georgia has been making wine for 8,000 years — the oldest winemaking civilization on Earth, confirmed by archaeology at Gadachrili Gora. They have 500 indigenous grape varieties, which is one-sixth of all the wine grapes that exist on the planet. The grape you're about to taste — Rkatsiteli — has been growing in this Alazani Valley since at least the 1st century AD, and the Gurjaani PDO appellation was producing it commercially as far back as 1887. When you drink Rkatsiteli from a qvevri, you're drinking a wine style that predates France's oldest appellations by 7,900 years.

   How: At the qvevri zone, ask to taste the Kakhetian-style Rkatsiteli alongside a European-style version of the same grape — the festival explicitly sets up this comparison. The qvevri version: 6 months of skin contact, fermented and aged underground in a sealed clay vessel. The result is amber-orange in color, full-bodied, with dried apricot, orange peel, chamomile, honey, and a firm tannic grip. This is NOT "orange wine as a trend." This is what orange wine looked like before Europe invented a name for it. Ask the pourer: "What's the difference in texture between the qvevri and the stainless steel version?" Watch them light up.

   Backup: If the qvevri zone is crowded, any family winery booth at the festival will be pouring their qvevri-style whites. Look for the amber/orange color in the glass — that's your signal.

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3. 3 Find the Wine That Won 96 Points and Costs Almost Nothing Wine · Price: low

   Where: The main tasting pavilions — specifically the zone featuring IWSC Gold Medal winners, which the festival has spotlighted since becoming an official IWSC partner in 2022. Look for the IWSC banners.

   What: The International Wine & Spirits Competition (IWSC) has been holding an annual judging session in Georgia since 2022. In 2024, the highest-scoring amber/orange wine was a vintage from Winery Gurjaani — 96 points for its 'intriguing bouquet and vibrant palate.' The grapes grew within the Gurjaani municipality. That wine and the vineyard that produced it are in the same place you're standing right now. And you're tasting it for a few GEL per glass, not the €50+ it would cost in a wine bar in Berlin or London. In 2025, Kotekhi – Gurjaani Wine Factory won the Georgian Wine Producer Trophy outright — 7 medals including 2 golds, best wine scoring 97 points. Kotekhi has history: it was built in 1976 as one of the Soviet Union's largest wine factories. In 1992 it was privatized. In 2016 it was completely modernized with cutting-edge winemaking technology. The same vines, the same Alazani Valley terroir — now producing wines that beat Europe's finest in blind tasting.

   How: At the IWSC zone, request the gold medal winners specifically. Ask: "Which wine won the most points this year?" Taste it slowly. Note what the IWSC judges called out — for the amber wine, it was the bouquet first, then the palate texture. See if you agree.

   Backup: Any booth labeled with IWSC medals or the National Wine Agency logo is a safe bet. The Georgian pavilion typically features 18+ gold medal wines from a single year's judging.

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4. 4 Watch Soldiers' Rations Being Made from This Year's Harvest History · Free

   Where: The culinary pavilion in Akhtala Park — follow the smell of thickening grape juice. During the festival's first days, this space smells like concentrated harvest.

   What: Churchkhela is one of the strangest and most perfect foods ever invented. Take walnut halves, thread them on a string 2–3 meters long, dip them in tatara (grape juice thickened with flour — no sugar, no preservatives), repeat three times, hang to dry for five days. The result is dense, shelf-stable for months, packed with fat and sugar from the nuts and grapes, and tastes like the harvest itself. Georgian soldiers carried it into battle. They didn't need anything else. The traditional technology of churchkhela in Kakheti was inscribed on Georgia's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2015. At the same station, you'll see tatara being made fresh — the grape must is heated and thickened until it sets like a soft pudding. This is called pelamushi in western Georgia. The festival's culinary pavilion makes it on-site from the current year's harvest grapes.

   How: Watch the full process — the stringing of walnuts, the dipping in the hot tatara, the hanging. Then eat a piece of both: churchkhela (cooled and dried, from earlier in the festival) and fresh warm tatara, poured into a cup. The tatara tastes like autumn distilled. Ask someone working the station: "What grape variety is used this year?" The answer changes depending on what's in the harvest.

   Backup: If the making demonstration is over, churchkhela is available from every artisan vendor at the market. Buy from a Kakheti local — look for the hand-written signs, not the tourist-facing displays.

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5. 5 Hear the Song NASA Chose to Represent All of Humanity History · Free

   Where: The main stage or traditional music pavilion inside Akhtala Park. The festival schedules both polyphonic folk ensembles and contemporary performers throughout both days.

   What: In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager Golden Record — a disc carrying 27 musical pieces selected to represent human civilization to any intelligence that might find it in deep space. American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax chose one Georgian song: Chakrulo. It is a three-part polyphonic battle song from Kakheti — specifically from this region, these valleys, these vineyards. Right now, Voyager 2 is 20+ billion kilometers from Earth, drifting past the heliosphere, carrying a Kakhetian wine-country harvest song into interstellar space. Chakrulo was recognized by UNESCO in 2001 as a prime example of Georgian polyphonic singing. Kakheti's style specifically is a "polyphonic dialogue over a bass background" — three independent vocal lines that never quite meet but create something that doesn't exist in any single voice. It sounds like wine tastes: layered, structural, older than you can measure.

   How: When the folk ensemble takes the stage, listen for the moment when all three parts lock together. That's the sound NASA chose. If they perform Chakrulo, stand still. Don't talk. When it ends, you'll understand why Alan Lomax said it was the only choice.

   Backup: The polyphonic ensembles typically perform on both festival days. If you miss the main stage performance, the artisan and cultural exhibition spaces often have smaller acoustic performances throughout the day.

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6. 6 Toast Like a Tamada: Drain Your Chacha Glass Without Getting Drunk Adventure · Price: low · Optional

   Where: Any of the chacha tasting stations at the festival — usually positioned near the main wine pavilions. Look for the clear spirit in small glass bottles or being poured from unlabeled containers.

   What: Chacha is Georgia's grape marc brandy — the spirit distilled from the fermented skins, seeds, and stems left after winemaking. It runs 40–65% ABV. Making chacha at home is a Kakheti tradition so common that entire neighborhoods gather at a shared still (called a zaod) after harvest, slaughter a pig, roast it over open fire, and drink their way through the distillation process over several days. The first distillate is called 'pirst nakhadi' — raw, fierce, and shared communally. Every toast in Georgia has a tamada — the toastmaster, elected at the beginning of any feast. The tamada must be eloquent, witty, and a good enough drinker to drain their glass on every single toast. The disgrace is not drinking too much — it's getting drunk. At this festival, you'll see this dynamic play out at every producer's table.

   How: When offered chacha, accept. Take a small pour. Before you drink, there must be a toast. If you're with a group, designate a tamada — the person who will propose the toast. Classic first toast: "To Georgia, the oldest wine civilization on Earth." Classic second: "To the grapes that gave both the wine and the spirit." Drain your glass. Don't sip. That's not how this works.

   Backup: If you prefer not to drink chacha, request machari — lightly fermented grape juice, sweet and low-alcohol, the harvest version of new wine. Every Georgian producer at the festival understands this request.

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Insider tips

• LARGEST wine festival in Eastern Europe - plan accordingly

• 400+ participants, 30,000+ visitors

• Combine with Kakheti wine tour

• Book accommodation early - Gurjaani fills up