“Georgian Wine Tourism Guide”:
New travel guide for best wine experience in Georgia

Planning your trip to Georgian wine-country and wondering where to begin your adventures? Look no further than the recently published, Georgian Wine Tourism Guide, for ideas and suggestions to help you simply and easily travel about Georgia and discover its rich wine culture.

Published by the Georgian Wine Association, the guide intends to facilitate a holiday vacation centered around Georgian wines and cuisine.

It lists over 120 wineries, 40 wine bars and shops, 200 recommended restaurants and 200 hotels and guest houses. All destinations have been assigned a QR (Quick Response) code to allow readers to quickly find their way towards their destination.

This book has the latest technology for travellers as venues are tagged with QR codes (two-dimensional bar-code). Scan the code image on the venue’s description with your smart phone and it will show its location on the screen, pinpointed on a Google Map. So, the secrets of the places that Georgians themselves visit, restaurants, wine cellars, bars and even small guest houses right out in the countryside, can be shared”, co-author Sally White told Agenda.ge.

All destinations have been assigned a QR code to allow readers to quickly find their way towards their destination. Photo by Georgian Wine Association. 

The book is a ‘first-mover’ for Georgia in its use of QR codes and, as London’s leading travel bookshop Daunts says, is a world leader in the depth of country research that Georgian Wine Tourism Guide offers. The book is available in Tbilisi bookshops and will also be sold in Europe and the US. The plan is to translate it first into Russian and then other languages”, she added.

The Georgian Wine Tourism Guide starts with general information about Georgia: how to get around in the country, where to stay, safety standards in the country, the location of medical facilities, local customs, embassies in Georgia, how tourists can communicate with locals and a description of Georgia’s geography.

The book also gives a brief chronology of Georgia and Georgian winemaking, which can be traced back to over 8,000 years ago and is detailed all the way up until September 2016, when the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Global Conference on Wine Tourism was held in Georgia.

The new book is the second edition of the Georgian Wine Tourism Guide book series. Photo by Georgian Wine Association.  

Traditional Georgian winemaking is one of the major topics of the book where all major grape varieties are introduced. Information on Georgia’s rich culinary tradition is also readily available in the book.

Tourists can also read up on Georgia’s numerous wine-producing regions, such as Kakheti, Kartli, Imereti, Adjara, Guria, Racha-Lechkhumi, Kvemo Svaneti, Samegrelo and Zemo Svaneti and the Samtskhe-Javakheti regions of Georgia.

It is a very detailed book – the first of its kind – about Georgia, Georgian grape varieties, Georgian wine regions. The information for this book was gathered and carefully fact-checked by researchers and editors. The book is unique with its QR codes that enable tourists to navigate easily”, said the communication and business development manager of the Georgian Wine Association, Tata Jaiani.

The book is available only in English language as of today but we are translating it into Russian language so our Russian speaker tourists will also be able to use this book-guide from this spring,” she added.

A group of tourists visiting Georgia's region Kakheti. Photo by Wines of Georgia. 

The book is widely available in bookshops across Georgia, in museum shops, in wine bars and wine shops. The price of the book is 30 GEL (about $11/€10*).

The book is also available for purchase in Germany and Great Britain.

The book itself is designed to help boost Georgia’s tourist sector by being an easy guide to navigate, with clearly defined regional coverage and indexes. The hope is that by telling the story of Georgian hospitality and unravelling the mystery of where to find the best wines, the guide will help draw in tourists. Not just from Georgia’s neighbours, but from much further afield - in Europe, the Pacific and the Americas”, said White.

*Currency conversions reflect National Bank of Georgia values as of today.