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Sighnaghi

Walled Hill Town Above the Alazani Wine Valley

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2 daysIdeal stay₹3,600From / night₹1,620Food / dayFreeEntry

A small hill town in Kakheti, Georgia's wine country, two hours east of Tbilisi: 18th-century walls with 23 towers, tiled roofs and balconies over the Alazani valley with the Greater Caucasus beyond. Family wineries pour qvevri wine (fermented in buried clay jars, a UNESCO-listed tradition); Bodbe convent, St Nino's burial place, is 2 km away. Busiest at the September–October harvest.

Highlights

  • Walk the town walls at sunset
  • Bodbe Monastery and St Nino's spring
  • Qvevri wine tasting in a family cellar
  • Alazani valley views to the Caucasus
  • Churchkhela and chacha
  • Rtveli grape harvest in autumn

Things to do

  • Town walls and towers walkEvening · 1h 30m
  • Bodbe MonasteryMorning · 1h 30m
  • Qvevri wine tasting and Kakhetian lunchAfternoon · 3h
  • Day trip to Davit Gareja cave monasteryMorning · 7h

Tours & tickets

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When to go

Best time: May – June, September – October

Heads up

Rtveli: Harvest Season in Kakheti

September and October are the grape harvest (rtveli): the best time to visit the wineries, and the busiest. Book rooms in Sighnaghi and Telavi, and a driver for the wineries, well ahead.

  • Rtveli (Grape Harvest) — Kakheti's grape harvest, from about mid-September into October: families and wineries pick, press the grapes in wooden troughs and seal the juice into buried qvevri, with supras afterwards. Many cellars let visitors join a picking day; book rooms in Sighnaghi and Telavi early, as it is the busiest time of year there.