Wine region · Georgia
Kakheti
Georgia’s principal wine region, and the heartland of qvevri winemaking.
Saperavi: deeply coloured, high-acid red with genuinely red flesh as well as red skin. And amber wine from Rkatsiteli — white grapes fermented on their skins in qvevri, giving tannic, savoury, oxidative whites that are unlike anything in Western Europe.
About Kakheti
Kakheti accounts for the large majority of Georgian wine production, sheltered by the Caucasus range to the north.
The traditional Kakhetian method ferments white grapes with skins, stems and seeds in buried qvevri, producing deeply coloured, tannic amber wines.
A parallel "European" style, made in stainless steel without skin contact, accounts for most commercial volume.
Kakheti grows the large majority of Georgia’s wine, on the plain between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus with the Alazani river running through it. The mountains shelter it from the north and the growing season is long, warm and dry.
It is also the home of qvevri winemaking — fermentation and ageing in buried clay vessels, on skins for whites as well as reds — which UNESCO inscribed on its intangible heritage list in 2013. The practice is continuous rather than revived, and Georgia’s claim to the longest unbroken winemaking tradition rests on archaeological evidence from this region and its neighbours.
What the name means
- Legal name
- Kakheti PDO
- Type
- Protected Designation of Origin (PDO)
- Set by
- National Wine Agency of Georgia
- Recognised
- 2010
- Regulates
- Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields.
The EU-level category under which national appellation systems sit. Used directly here for countries whose national term is simply the PDO — and for the UK’s own post-2020 scheme, which mirrors it.
Georgia operates a PDO system covering some two dozen appellations. Qvevri fermentation is a traditional method used across several of them, not a designation in itself.
Grapes
Wines from here
Climate
- Latitude
- 41.6° N
- Temperature
- Warm
- Day–night swing
- Wide
- Rainfall
- Spread through the year
Sheltered between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, which block the northern weather and give a long, dry, reliable growing season.
Kakheti has a warm climate with continental and altitude influences, at roughly 41.6° of latitude. Nights are markedly cooler than days. Rainfall is spread through the year. Sheltered between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, which block the northern weather and give a long, dry, reliable growing season.
Vintage variation
Vintage matters somewhat
A dependable climate with occasional difficult years. Most vintages are broadly similar; the exceptions are the ones worth knowing about.
- Continental influence. No large body of water to buffer the extremes. Continental places have hotter summers, colder winters and sharper frost risk, all of which widen the gap between years.
Derived from the climate above, not from anyone’s view of particular years. Why there are no vintage scores here.
These are influences on how a wine turns out, not determinants of it. Picking date, yield, vine age and every winemaking decision sit between the climate and the glass.
What to eat, and how to serve it
Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.
Sources
Sources consulted
- National Wine Agency of Georgia — National Wine Agency, Georgia
- Ancient Georgian traditional Qvevri wine-making method — UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity — UNESCO