Tour guides make Georgian wineries explorable in virtual reality
The virtual winery guide app includes a tour of the Giuaani winemaking family estate in the province of Kakheti. Photo via Giuaani Winery.
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A team of guides helping travellers explore Georgia has released an application enabling discovery of the country's iconic wineries in virtual reality.
Launched on Google Play platform, Winery Tour in Georgia brings family wineries from the country's grape-rich eastern province of Kakheti to Android users looking to get a glimpse of their work, facilities and traditions from afar.
The insight explores the long-standing tradition of viticulture in Georgia and in the sunlit province in particular - confirmed in 2017 with a major discovery of vessels bearing chemical traces of grapes.
Created for Trails and Wines tour agency by VRex Immersive, the app takes advantage of both virtual reality goggles and non-VR devices. In the former capacity, users can get simple goggle headsets - or even make one of their own out of cardboard - to use with the software.
A view of a bakery where local bread is made in the featured winery. Photo via Giuaani Winery.
How does a winery visit look like, once you're in Georgia? Of course, it's a bit of history, a bit of technology, and of course, some excellent food, drinks, songs, and toasts" - Winery Tour in Georgia app summary
In the non-VR mode, it is used for a 360-degree view of the provided locations, including pre-recorded video guides on subjects including wines, qvevri traditional clay vessels for wine storage and local bread-making.
The Google Play version of the software offers users a tour of the award-winning Giuaani Winery in the village of Manavi, whose estate dates back to 1894 and produces about 400,000 bottles of wine annually, shipped around the world.
Along with other Georgian winemakers, the estate was presented by Trails and Wines last year in a wine and tourism event hosted by the agency.
The guides of Trails and Wines, who have themselves been distinguished with the Best Niche Tourism Award of the Welcome to Georgia! Awards for national tourism industry, organise tours in the country from the local point of view.
Specialising in the "like a local" experience for visitors, their tours include a wine walk in capital Tbilisi, highland hikes, a taste of Georgian cuisine and a cooking class for popular local dishes.
Run by guides specialising in hiking trails and winemaking, they have also released content for travellers including tips on buying Georgian wine for the first time, and featured in online talks involving people from local winemaking scene.
Their winery tour application can be found on Google Play.