What to Eat in Georgia in 2026: The Best Food and Drink

Georgian wine is a matter of grape varieties rather than chateaux, and Kakheti is where nearly all of it happens. Saperavi is the red, dark enough to stain the glass; Rkatsiteli and Mtsvane make the dry whites blended as Tsinandali; Kindzmarauli, from Saperavi grown around Kvareli, is the semi-sweet most visitors meet first and either love or quietly abandon. Kisi is the one to ask for if the cellar has it, and Usakhelouri, from a few hectares in Lechkhumi, is rare enough that most Georgians have never tasted it. Food is regional in the same way. Khachapuri is a round filled bread in Imereti and an open boat with an egg dropped in it on the Adjaran coast; khinkali are lifted by the twisted top, which stays on the plate; churchkhela is walnuts strung on thread and dipped in reduced grape juice at harvest. Bread comes out of a clay tone oven, and Svanetian salt is a spice mix rather than salt.

The standard purchase is a day in Kakheti with two or three cellars, a lunch and a driver — the driver being the practical point, since tastings are poured generously. Estate visits run alongside the family cellars, Mukhrani being the grand version with a restored nineteenth-century house around it. Longer gastronomic trips move through several regions and add cooking with a household rather than watching a demonstration. Dinners at a single venue, cooked to order and eaten by a fire, are the small end of the offer.

Practical. Rtveli, the harvest, falls in late September and October, the one time cellars are busy enough to turn away visitors who arrive unannounced. Family maranis want a day or two of warning; the estates take walk-ins. Portions assume sharing and arrive at once rather than in courses. Vegetarians do well without asking for adaptations — lobio, pkhali, badrijani and the cheeses are the everyday table, not a concession. Cash is still normal in village cellars, and buying a bottle or two after a free tasting is expected courtesy rather than obligation.