Kakheti is Georgia's most important winemaking region, divided into Shida Kakheti and Gare Kakheti. Its strongest vineyard sites are in the Alazani and Iori basins, 400 to 700 metres above sea level, on humus-carbonate, black and alluvial soils.
Rkatsiteli, Mtsvane Kakhuri, Kisi, Khikhvi and Saperavi are all important here. Saperavi is the most widespread, and producers make wine in both European and qvevri styles. For traditional wines, pressed grape must ferments underground in egg-shaped earthenware qvevri with skins, stalks and pips for five to six months. That extended contact gives the wines more extraction and tannin. After the first racking, they age for about a year. Families, neighbours, friends and communal harvest work pass the method on, and UNESCO inscribed it on its Representative List in 2013.
Inside the region
1 named area
Each guide keeps its place within Kakheti clear, with a direct route back to the map.
Producer profiles
Begin with this selection, or open the full directory when you want every producer currently placed in Kakheti.
- MildianiFounded in 1991, Mildiani is a family-founded Georgian wine company with a base in Tsinandali, vineyards across several wine zones, and a range that moves between stainless-steel wines and traditional qvevri bottlings.
- The Spirit of GeorgiaA Telavi winery founded in 2014, with Vine Ponto wines spanning qvevri and oak-cellar production.
- Twins Wine House in NapareuliFamily winery in Napareuli, Kakheti, run by twin brothers Gia and Gela Gamtkitsulashvili. First in modern Georgia to commercially bottle Qvevri wine, in 1994. Flagship grape is Khikhvi, a rare indigenous white variety fermented on skins for six months in buried clay vessels, producing amber wine with red-wine tannin weight.
- Vazisubani Estate LtdKakheti estate farming 35 hectares of indigenous Georgian varieties under an 11th-generation winemaker, producing amber qvevri wines and European-style whites from the same ground.