Tbilisi Podcast · Eat This! Food & Wine Tours Georgia

Georgia Travel Guide Part 1: Unmissable Destinations and Hidden Gems to Explore

·46 min

The episode opens with the wine harvest window in Georgia, running from late August to early November. One host says eatthistours.com is offering some very special authentic family harvest tours this year. There are only seven, and they run in small groups of seven to twelve people. The idea is simple: harvest with the family and their friends and help them make wine for the season. The day ends with a big feast, or supra, hosted by the winemaker. They set that against the more common tourist version, where visitors show up at a larger winery and simulate the harvest for fun. That option is also great, and it has one clear advantage: it can be booked in advance. The real harvest, by contrast, depends on the weather and on being in the right place at the right time. The hosts are blunt that if you have the flexibility, the authentic version is the better one, because you are actually helping the family make their wine. They keep coming back to the limited capacity and the sense that these tours are genuinely hard to get. From there, the conversation shifts into Svaneti and the area around Ushguli. One host says Ushguli is beautiful and UNESCO-recognized. The other adds the practical part. The famous route from Mestia to Ushguli is a three- to four-day uphill hike for people who want the long version. That is a serious trek, and in high season it gets busy. The hosts like the idea of the hike, but they are also honest that a four-by-four makes more sense. It is faster, less punishing, and still gets you the same scenery. They joke about how rough the road can get after rain and how a Prius is not the move. The tone stays local and slightly teasing instead of overly reverent. The mountains are clearly beautiful, but not the kind of place where everybody needs to prove something. Food takes over again after that. Kubdari comes up as the best-known dish from Svaneti, basically a khachapuri filled with meat instead of cheese. Svaneti salt gets a fair amount of praise too as one of the most Georgian flavors they know, the sort of thing they used to carry around before living there permanently. They talk about sprinkling it on salad and getting a little hit of Georgia back in one bite. The episode also mentions that some khachapuri there can come with cannabis on it, which fits the region’s very specific food personality. The whole segment stays practical, a bit jokey, and grounded in what travelers actually do with a destination. It wraps by moving toward southern Georgia and teeing up the next episode, which will mostly cover western Georgia, including Batumi, Kutaisi, and Racha. The hosts say they started with the most famous places first, partly because those are the easiest entry points. They also point listeners straight to the next installment and ask them to subscribe so they do not miss part two. The sign-off includes a reminder about the Tbilisi Podcast site, where listeners can find social links, the newsletter, and more travel and expat services in Georgia.

As heard by us

Practical Georgia advice on wine harvest, mountain routes, and local food.

Georgia is framed as a place where harvest timing, weather, and small-group access shape the trip as much as the destination itself. The contrast between real family harvest work and the more staged winery version lands cleanly, and the move into the mountain route around Mestia…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a Georgia trip built around late-summer wine harvest, small groups, and mountain scenery.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify