Tbilisi is basically a wine lover's playground, and today we're diving into the best wine bars around the city. We’re talking about the ultimate spots where you can sip on Georgian wines and explore the delicious diversity they offer. Seriously, if you’re wondering where to go for a good glass, the answer is everywhere! From cozy little nooks to bustling bars with walls of wine, we’re covering our favorites that cater to all vibes and tastes. So grab your glass and get ready, because we’re about to spill the tea—or should I say, wine—on where to find the best pours in Tbilisi!

Discover the thriving wine bar scene in Tbilisi! Join Tom and Meg as they guide you through the best wine bars in the city, showcasing artisan wines, unique tastings, and incredible food pairings. From historic cellars to trendy establishments, uncover the hidden gems of Tbilisi's wine culture.

Listen now and prepare to uncork the secrets of Georgian wine bars!

Tbilisi is the wine lover's paradise, and we dove deep into the best wine bars you can hit up while you're in the city! Seriously, if you’re anywhere near Tbilisi and you’re not sipping on some local wines, what are you even doing? We shared our top spots where you can taste a variety of wines from all over Georgia, and trust me, it’s not just a glass of Saperavi or a cheeky Mtsvane! From cozy, lesser-known spots like Wine Merchants to the iconic 8,000 Vintages, there’s something to tickle every palate. Whether you're a newbie to the wine world or a seasoned sommelier, these bars have got you covered with knowledgeable staff ready to help you navigate through the delightful wines they offer. Don’t be surprised if you end up making new friends — the atmosphere is as warm as the wine!

We also talked about how Tbilisi has transformed into a wine hotspot over the years, with a plethora of bars popping up that focus on artisan wines. The city’s wine scene has exploded and it’s thrilling to see how many different flavors and styles are now available right in the heart of Tbilisi. We explored the unique vibes of each bar, from the lively Wine Boutique where locals gather to sip and chat, to the tranquil Daddy Wine Bar that’s perfect for a romantic evening. We even touched on some hidden gems where you can experience wine tastings in charming settings. So grab a glass and tune in, because we’re about to take you on a delicious journey through Tbilisi’s top wine bars!

Wanna know the best part? Many of these places host regular tasting events, and we spilled the beans on where you can join in on the fun. Imagine sipping on exquisite wines while nibbling on some tasty snacks — it’s the perfect way to spend an evening in Tbilisi. And if you're feeling adventurous, there are even some new spots we’re dying to check out. So whether you’re planning a trip or just dreaming from your couch, this episode is packed with tips and recommendations to elevate your wine game. Cheers to that!

Takeaways:

• Tbilisi is basically the wine capital of Georgia, with countless wine bars to explore.
• Wine bars here offer a great mix of local and international wines, making tastings fun.
• Finding a good wine bar in Tbilisi can turn your evening into a delightful experience.
• Each wine bar has its own vibe, so there's something for everyone in the city.
• Wine tasting events are often hosted at these bars, which can be a great way to learn.
• The wine scene in Tbilisi has exploded in the past few years, so get ready to sip!

Links referenced in this episode:

• foodfuntravel.com
• expathub.ge
• eattthistours.com
• foodfuntravel.com/tbilisi-wine-tasting

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• foodfuntravel.com
• expathub.ge
• eattthistours.com
• 8,000 vintages
• Wine Exchange
• Winenot
• Wine Boutique
• Dadi Wine Bar
• Wine Merchants
• Archive
• Vinoground
• Mosmieri Tapas
• Pet Nat
• karalashvili wine cellar
• Saint Bunny
• Wine Effect
• Gvino

gamarjoba

This is the Tbilisi Podcast covering life, travel and more in the country of Georgia, brought to you by foodfuntravel.com, expathub.ge and eatthis tours.com.

In this episode, Tbilisi wine bars.

Find out the best places to go taste wine all around the city, which is by far the best place to get the largest diversity of wine bar options in the entire country.

Hello. Hello. Welcome to another episode of the Tbilisi Podcast, a show about life and travel in Tbilisi and Georgia. I'm your host, Meg.

I run a website called foodfuntravel.com and I like to talk about food, fun and travel, which is very appropriate for this episode today.

Yeah, and I'm here as well. This is Tom from eattthistours.com and expathub.ge doing tour stuff. Wine and food tour stuff. So also, you know, some wine stuff today.

Yeah.

And a bit of food stuff maybe. So that's good.

But today we're talking about something that is more Tbilisi based. For those of you who are going to spend a couple of days here or who have maybe just moved here and you're like, where do I go? What do I do?

Where do I find the wine? The answer is everywhere. Thank you for listening.

Yeah, yeah. Literally, this is wine country. It's not that there is wine country in Georgia. It is Georgia is wine country, the country of wine.

But today we're going to highlight some of our favorite wine bars that you can go to where it's really easy to go and have a wine tasting. Sometimes there's actually wine tasting events at some of these bars that we'll be talking about.

Sometimes there is a sommelier there or a wine expert who can help you choose a bottle of wine that you might be interested in. So we're going to talk about some of our favorites.

And yeah, I mean, I'd say Tbilisi is the best place to be able to taste wines from everywhere in Georgia all in one space. Because when you head out to the villages or you go visit a winemaker, of course, or you go to.

Even if you go to a wine factory, like wherever you go to go tasting out in the countryside, you're normally tasting the wines of that particular winery. And most of the restaurants outside of Tbilisi, they maybe have a pretty limited selection of wines.

And also they don't have, they don't really have wine bars like Kutaisi, Batumi and Tbilisi have wine bars, but most of the other moderately large cities don't really have wine bars. As a Scene.

There are bars that sell wine, there are restaurants that sell wine, but you're not going to walk in and be like, well, here's a selection of 500 wines.

There is literally a wall of wine. Yeah, a wall. Oh wait, there's another wall on that side too.

Yeah. So some of these places that we're going to talk about have a huge selection of wine.

Some of them have a smaller selection of wine, but still a good selection of wine. We just want to be able to offer some really cool options that all have a bit of a different vibe as well.

So it's a pretty diverse list of wine and food bar type places.

All right, let's jump in. Which one do you want to start with, Tom?

We're not going to do this. Any particular order?

No, it's not an order of favorites.

It's not like top 10, starting with number one. This is just different places, all with a different vibe that we think are cool. So let's start with wine merchants.

I think that's an interesting different place to go. It's not one of the really well known wine bars, so they're not like packed all the time.

We'll talk about a couple of the really well known ones a bit later on.

These guys we only really just discovered in the last six months ourselves, but they've been open for a little over a year. They're located about a four or five minute walk from Fabrica.

So if you're on the Marginashvili side of Tbilisi and you've heard of Fabrica, this is only a few minutes walk from there. So if you're wanting to try it out, it's very easy to get a.

Lot of people stay at Fabrica because it's basically the biggest hipstery type hostel hotel courtyard with restaurants and bars in it. There's lots going on. Speaking of which, there's a wine bar there called Samurai as well.

It's a bit small, it's quite a.

Small wine bar, but they have a decent selection there. So if y Fabrica wasn't on the list. But they're also really good. So definitely they didn't miss the list because they were bad.

Just because the list is only so long.

Yeah, if you're, if you're on that side of town, check out wine merchants. It's got this cute little sort of London pub vibe from the outside and it's a really sweet place.

So you head in there and then there's like sort of the seating restaurant area in the front and then in the back is where you'll find the selection of their wines.

Yeah, they've got a big old wine room in the back and they've got an oenologist who's actually the sommelier there.

So where we use the word sommelier, there are people who are qualified sommeliers who studied that and then there are people who are winemakers, There are people who are enologists, like George at Wine Merchants.

George would never call himself a sommeliers.

Yeah, no, George would never use that word.

But yeah, if we use that word here, we might be using it a little bit interchangeably through this because there are definitely quite a few people who do use that word. When it's.

Say the term sommelier would just mean the person to help you, the expert.

The wine expert. Maybe we'll stick to wording like that instead.

But yeah, some of the places we're talking about today definitely do have sommeliers who are fully qualified, which is fantastic too. Yeah, I love that place. It's just really friendly and the food's really good. The mascarpone. The mascarpone with honey and truffle is wonderful.

Love it.

Just delicious. And they also do these like dirty, tasty sandwiches as well.

They make their own breads.

Bread made.

Yeah, yeah. They make their own sort of baguettes, Ish style bread. It's great.

So, yeah, you can just drop in there and you can see if George happens to be there or if someone else can help you with, you know, picking out a particular wine or. They do also host wine events.

You can follow them on Instagram and on Facebook and see if they have any wine events going on that you might like to go along to.

They have a tasting. They have like a standard tasting. So if you go and it's like, do you want to taste four wines? And you can go, yep, great. And they'll just.

You'll be tasting whatever's open. That's interesting. And that's also one of the cool things here. I mean, it's not just in Georgia, but with a lot of wine bars, of course.

They've just got a whole bunch of wines open. You can tell them roughly what you like or whatever and they'll sort of just put together a selection for you to taste some wines, which is awesome.

Love it. All right, let's go on to number two. I'm going to say Wine boutique.

Yes. Yeah. Popular little place, especially with locals as well. Wine Boutique has been open for a couple of years now.

And it's one of those places that you walk in and it's just. You've got that. It's like walking into someone's lounge room of like, your mate's house. They're just like, hey, welcome.

It's a really friendly place to just hang out.

It's like the Philosopher's Wine Bar.

Basically, you'll just meet a bunch of random people who all sit around one big table in the middle of the bar, or if some of them are outside smoking or whatever. But, yeah, they're just like, come in. We've always got loads of different bottles of wine open. The owners love to drink wine.

When I'm there, there's always someone fascinating to speak to. Last time we were there, it was a couple of winemakers who were visiting from Armenia.

Yeah, we ran into them and like, other times we run into interesting people. So, yeah, it's. It's a bit of a. Well, it's wine boutique. So it's a. It's a small little wine bar, but.

A big selection of wine.

Yeah.

The guys there definitely know what they're talking about and if you tell them the sort of wines that you're into, they can help guide you towards your, you know, the bottle of wine for you to have that evening. They don't do food, they've got some snacks. But this is a place that you'll go and just really drink wine and have a couple of snacks.

Maybe it's not a place to get meals or anything like that.

Very much just a wine bar.

Super cute place. Love it. Like, it's very cute.

Yeah.

And you just feel like you're part of their wine family when you turn up, you know, so it's a great place if you just want to go there and have a chat with some new people. Especially if you're like a solo traveler or whatever. Yeah.

Whereas some places on this list, it's more like you're going to get sat at a table by yourself and that's it, you're going to sit there and taste wines by yourself. If you're a solo traveler or a small group.

So Wine Boutique is located. It's warm walking distance from Stamber Hotel. So back on the other side of the river, if you're staying in Stamber.

Near rooms near Rustavelli metro station.

Yep. Easy down there. Really easy walk from that area in Vera. So across the river, all these wine places are all over the spot.

So depends on where you're staying. You'll probably find a good wine bar close by.

Nice. All right now. Yeah. We've gone from one place that doesn't really do food to another place that's more focused on food.

Daddy Wine Bar on Dadiani street, right next to Freedom Square, Right in the.

Heart of the city.

Yep. So this is not in the old town, but it. Old town like this.

It's on the edge of the cobbled old town and it's just in the sort of more modern part of the old town, which is where Freedom Square is.

Yep. These guys have been established for a really long time. One of the best wine bars in Tbilisi. It'll be on all the lists.

So for that reason, if you do want to go in there at prime time, you probably should make a reservation in advance.

Almost certainly a reservation for dinner is essential. Yeah. Good selection of wines. Helpful people in there. They make really nice food.

They're going to help you sort of decide what wines will pair well with the food that you're making. So. With the food that you're buying and eating. So, yeah, just great. Really friendly atmosphere and always busy in the evenings. So it's. Yeah.

Great place to just hang out.

Especially if you've got some places we'll always go to. There'll always be people there.

Yep. For sure. All right, now let's move on to probably the most famous.

Didn't want to start with this one because everyone who's in Georgia already knows it, but if you're not here, 8,000 vintages is, I have to mention it, the big. It's the big one. We don't just have to mention it. We should mention it because they're good. They're really good.

It was that thing they had the walls of wine. And they also had an incredible sommelier who's not there anymore, but we'll talk about him in a little bit.

I'm sure they've replaced him with a wonderful person, whoever's there now. But they do food tasting plates. So you've got like your hand plate, your cheese plates. Different, sort of. I think they've like expanded that.

They have a bigger selection of different. Different types of food. Sharing boards.

Sharing boards.

Lots of different sharing boards.

Wine tasting classes.

So the really important thing to know about 8,000 vintages is that everything that they have on the shelf there has been blind tested by their group of experts. So it has to pass a certain amount of like checks a minimum standards.

Standard to stock it. Otherwise they just say no, we won't be stocking that one at the, at the wine bar. And yeah, because it's blind tasted.

It's not just they're putting their mates wines there.

No. So you would think with a place being that big that, that they might just stock everything.

You'll get all of you know, they just stock whoever's got wine, whatever will put it on the shelf. No, it, they very, very specifically choose who they put on their shelf. And.

And you know, just because a winemaker gets in one year with one bottle of wine doesn't mean they'll make the cut next year. So it's. Yeah, they, they keep their standards high which is why they have managed to continue to grow. They are in four different locations.

They're in Sabatelo and then they moved into Vacay and then they moved into Vera.

So near south of Ristaveli Avenue really.

They opened up in the airport at Tbilisi and they just opened in Berlin. Oh there's one in Batumi as well.

Yeah, there's one in Batumi. So yeah, they've got loads and loads.

In Berlin, Germany just like a couple of days ago. So if you're in Berlin you can go find Georgian wine at 8,000 vintages.

Yeah. And it is quite the selection. Yeah. Most of the stores, they're all different sizes so it does depend which one you go to.

But the one in downtown, the one that's sort of in the Arista Valley area, is thousands of bottles of different types of wine. Really it's pretty big. And the one in Sabital is also really big and the Varque one's pretty big.

Yeah.

So they're all pretty big apart from the Bergebi one. The one in Bogebi, which you'll never go to if you're a tourist anyway, is a bit smaller. But yeah, they've got a huge selection.

And yeah, the downtown one, the sommelier there is obviously very high level of expertise and can quickly recommend wines for you. And they've always got something just sitting there. So if you just walk in and go, can I just taste something?

They're probably going to let you taste something for free.

You can do a quickie wine tasting for sure.

Just a mini sort of introduction wine tasting either for free or for a very low amount of money. And then you can choose something that you like and sit down and order a board of food.

Yeah. Once again with 8,000 vintages, if you're wanting to go On a peak night, Friday, Saturday or even just, I would say dinner at all.

If you're going around dinner time, make a reservation, otherwise you might be disappointed.

The downtown one. Absolutely. Make a reservation. Yeah. Okay. And Sabitalo, normally quite busy, but you might get in with that one. Yeah, possible. Yeah. So they're great.

Fantastic. They are the most long established.

And the name, if you're wondering about the name 8,000 vintages, this is because there have been approximately 8,000 vintages since they started making wine in Georgia in 6,000 BC. So that's where they got the name from. Alright.

Now the reason he's not there is not surprisingly because he went off and opened his own wine bar which happens to be relatively close to the 8,000 vintages.

I don't know, a few doors down.

Yeah.

I don't know if there was like some rivalry, I've never got the full story, not going to get into the politics of it, but he opened in a location just down the street from the Sabotage branch on Cint Sade Street. And I have to say his, his venue is significantly nicer than the 8,000 vintages.

So maybe this was his goal, was to offer the same sort of level of wine and food boards and things that you'll get in 8,000 vintages. But opened in a venue that's just stunning. Really nicely done. Great design. Got a grand piano in there now as well.

And they've just opened the full kitchen. So they're offering lots of sort of cooked food now. Not just brunch, not just boards.

They've started with champagne. Well, it counts as champagne Sparkling brunch they're calling it.

Yeah, but you can order the breakfast dishes for dinner as well is what they told me.

Now sometimes you want eggs at night. Why not?

Yeah. Well, hey, hey. All day breakfast is an English classic, so there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not complaining.

But we do have to mention with Wine Exchange, we do actually host regular win tasting nights. We do our wines day sessions, which is our Wednesday.

Every second Wednesday we do a wine tasting there and we have a different theme every time we do it. So the last one we did was summer wines. We've had female winemakers as a theme. We've had Georgian grapes made in European style.

We've had Georgian style but European grapes.

Yep. Lots of different every single week. What we intend to do with this wine tasting is to provide some new insight into winemaking.

So whether that be how Georgian grapes are being used, but in a European style, as we said, whether that is something more like how female winemakers here are making a massive impact on the wine scene. Go, girls. Add a little bit of technical knowledge, but nothing too technical.

The sessions are definitely designed for sort of beginners, intermediates, and also experts who just want to try different wines. So we always have a pretty diverse selection.

If you're going to a regular wine tasting in downtown, what they normally do is like, it'll be a tourist wine tasting, where they're like, here's a cat's telly, here's Saperavi, here's something else. That's amber. That's Georgian wine. Thanks for coming. Not necessarily.

I mean, there's obviously better ones and worse ones, but our goal was to do something a little bit more diverse and a little bit more unexpected. So, you know, we're tasting things like Xal Shavi.

We're tasting things like Acerotelli Sciala wines that, as a tourist coming here for their first week, you're probably going to go, I have never heard of this. What is this? Not seen it in any wine bars anywhere. Didn't see it on the restaurant menus. I just don't know what this wine is.

But we like to do a bit of a mix. So you'll still try Cazzatelli at our wine tasting sometimes, but you'll also try some rare wines. And that's what we like to keep things interesting.

So just head to our Facebook page. It's Eat this Tours, and we have our events listed there, and you can just jump on and see what dates we've got them going and see what the theme is.

For the particular, we don't release the themes, like, so far in advance. Maybe like a week or so in advance. So it's not like you can be like, oh, I'm coming in October. What's the theme going to be?

And we're like, we don't know.

We release them a few weeks in advance, so you can take a quick look at.

But, yeah, go to Eat this tours on Instagram or on Facebook and get the information for our upcoming events.

Yeah, so that's wine exchange. It's just a little bit outside of the city center, because we tried doing some in the city center and it was just always.

It's always a bit more impractical for expats, but we're happy for tourists and expats. To attend and you can jump on the metro and we're a few minutes from technical university metro stop.

Yeah.

Or you can get a taxi out of town.

Easy peasy, easy way.

It's not that far. Yeah, not that far. Sabitalo is like the main suburb just outside of Rustaveli in the main sort of city area. So it's really not that far to go.

Yeah.

All right, so next up, let's talk about archive. Yes, this place is pretty interesting.

Yes. So you do. If you see like a few, like what to do's in Tbilisi, you'll definitely get recommendations to go and visit the wine museum.

But the thing you may not know about visiting the wine museum is they have one of Tbilisi's best sommeliers at the wine bar there.

Yeah, Jabba is there most nights. I mean, you can always call to check if he's going to be there. And he really is one of the top sommeliers in Georgia. He's fantastic.

They have a splendid selection of wines, but they do, they have an excellent selection. Quite a wide range.

Not as big as like 8,000 vintages or wine exchange, which have massive, massive ranges of wine, but they do still have a pretty big range of wines. Everything, of course has been selected by the sommelier to meet quality standards. And yeah, they do, they've got fantastic wines there.

But the biggest reason to go there, beyond the fact that the wines are going to be fabulous, is that it is in a 17th century old cellar that they've recently renovated. So this was part of the old caravanni, which is the building where they used to bring in imports. So, you know the Silk Road people would come here.

Didn't they used to like park their camels there?

Yeah, yeah. So they used to have camels inside the building and stuff like that. I don't know the full history of that.

Something we could probably figure out for another episode. But it's still a very interesting building. Upstairs is the wine museum, which is also a really interesting building.

And then downstairs, this massive cellar that connects to the river. So they used to have trade coming in on the river and they could load straight into their cellars right next to the river.

This was just basically abandoned for decades. It wasn't being used for anything. And then eventually, just in a few recent years, they have actually fully renovated these cellars.

They're still renovating parts of it and they've opened this restaurant in this massive underground cellar area with a celebrity chef currently as well, they're doing a wine pairing menu. So you can order A food and wine pairing menu. There's. Or you can just go in and enjoy some great wines. And there's a really cool thing here.

I really love this about Georgia. They also sell the wines as if they're a shop. So you can just go in and buy the wines there if you want to.

But one of the coolest things that when we first sort of started going to wine bars in Georgia was they just have all the wine on the shelf. You can just walk around the shelves, pick one up, and what it says on the bottle is the price you pay.

I mean, they might add VAT to the top of it or whatever, or service charge, but it's not like if you go to a regular restaurant in London where they'll say, well, yeah, we've got that wine, but if you're sitting here, you're obviously going to pay 100% markup on the bottle. So you can.

There's nothing worse than like going into a shop somewhere and seeing like a bottle of wine that you had at a restaurant and it's like half, less than half the price.

I mean, we know that's how restaurants work. So it's not that I'm criticizing restaurants for using that business model. It's totally fine. But I just really like the fact that. Yeah, you are.

That's how they make their money and keep their restaurant business working, I guess.

Okay, I'll let them see.

That's how they do it. But yeah, it's really cool here. Sure.

The prices you'll pay at a restaurant bar for the wine is going to be higher than you'll pay if you go to wine exchange or 8,000 vintages where it's more of a shop. But they still operate this model. It's like you see the wine there and you see the price on the bottle and you pay the price on the bottle.

Plus anytime.

Almost like cellar door prices.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, they're just. They've got a little bit of markup to cover the cost on there.

I mean, I think this situation is changing because I've seen so many restaurants now, even the ones that have wines around the restaurant, where I'm looking at the wine prices in the restaurant and going, that's double what I'd pay in wine exchange for this wine, obviously. And it's fine like as that.

I'm not criticizing the fact they have to make money, but I think it's still a cool thing that you can just walk around the restaurant and look at the shelves and pick wines off. It's not like they've got them stacked in a cupboard somewhere in the back with no prices on.

It's like you have to like look at a menu and not have any sort of visual clues as to what. Because you know what, we're visual people. Sometimes you pick a wine because I like the label.

It's not necessarily because not everyone's a wine expert. Most people don't know anything about wine. So you're going to choose it because you're like, that's a pretty label. I like that.

Let's give that one a try.

And to have the opportunity to walk around and see all the different wines and just pick the one you want rather than just looking at words on a paper.

Yeah.

Makes a big difference.

So archive is nice in this way that they, they still offer that option.

I don't know how many years they'll keep doing that for because I feel like people are going to start realizing that maybe they could charge more for the wine and not do it that way. But I like the fact that they still do. But they're. I mean they're really a restaurant. They do great quality food.

So they're like high quality restaurant. Amazing sort of ambience in this old cellar.

A proper professional, top level sommelier who will help you choose the wines you want as well as they do some wine tastings there as well. So you can also book a wine tasting. But if you just turn up as like one person by yourself and just go, hey, can I do a wine tasting?

That might be a little bit more tricky. If you're booking as a small group, then yeah, it should be completely possible. So yeah, I love that place. Great. And it's super, super central.

It's right in the middle of the cobbled street area of downtown, like the walking streets. So if you are just hanging around in the tourist area, you can get there very easily. They're a bit hard to find though.

Just find the. It's like just up from the Sione Cathedral.

Yeah, but that's the, that's the entrance where the wine museum is. And they close.

You have to go, oh, they do close.

When they close in the evening at some point, I don't know what time. And then at that point you have.

To use the door on the riverside one.

They have this door down some steps on the riverside with a tiny little plaque on the side that you wouldn't even realize necessarily was a restaurant.

If you go through the grounds of the Sioni Cathedral down to the riverside walkway highway, no one's gonna know what.

We'Re talking about at this point. So anyway, hopefully you find it. That's what we're saying. Take a look on the maps and just know that there is an entrance for them.

Whatever it says the pin is for the entrance.

There's one where the Y Museum is and when that's closed, you have to walk around to the river to the other side of the building and there's some steps that go down. Hope you find it. Fingers crossed. Otherwise you can call them as you try to find it and hopefully they could direct you.

I'm sure they're used to it now.

But, you know, it's interesting because it's like very exclusive, the fact that you literally can't find the place that easily. So. So, yeah, it's cool. All right. Now another place, small place, but now two locations, they expanded.

So for the longest time, this place, it's called Winot and very cute name.

I mean, I always say that, why not?

Why not?

I was like, yep, Friday night, why not?

Yeah. So they have this tiny little venue which was across from Wine Factory, which.

Is just sort of the edge of Varque and Vera. Very famous area which used to have an amazing wine bar that closed down, which is very sad.

But, yeah, lots of restaurants, lots of different things to choose from in Wine Factory.

But just across the street from that you've got Wine Knot, which was this tiny bar that did not only did they have good hosts there to help you find quality wine, but they also would do well wine tasting, of course, but they'd have jazz nights, they'd have stand up comedy. Lots of different events that would get really packed. Like you'd have to sit on the stairs in order or in the window to have a seat.

And they've just recently opened up in Goodyushvili Square. So this has recently been renovated by the government. It was old, old area and they've redone it to look like old as new again sort of thing.

So this is a really, really popular square at the moment for there's still works going on there. So, like it hasn't been completely finished.

It's mostly done in the main area.

Yeah.

The outer areas are still having some work done.

So in this area, lots of cool bars and a couple of really great restaurants have moved in. And one of those is why not? And they have much more space now, which is wonderful.

Yeah. So it's a little cellar bar there as well. Actually both of them are like little cellar bars.

You walk down the steps to get in, but Also they have a few outside tables. Yeah, I don't know, it's just cute. They've always got a good vibe. They've been popular for a few years since they opened the first one.

They always have very friendly staff that are helpful. I've heard good things about the food now at the Goodyushvili one. I haven't tasted it yet, but I have heard very good things about the food there.

Nice. All right, speaking of food, let's move on to another place that's more of a wine restaurant rather than a wine bar. Saint Bunny.

I love Saint Bunny. We went there for drinks for my birthday last year. That was a surprise because I didn't know I was there.

This one is also sort of in that vera area, just up from Rooms in that area.

This one's very close to Rooms Hotel. This is literally like a two minute walk from Rooms Hotel.

Hard to find.

It's down a back street, up a set of stairs. You'll eventually find a sign.

Yeah, it's not very easy to find but if you look at your GPS and you're like, okay, it's somewhere down this, you'll get there. This sort of car parking area, side street. But because of that, they've actually got quite a large venue there because it's down a back street.

So they're not inside and outside. Actually we need to go back now because my birthday's in December. So it was cold and we sat inside. But now the terrace will be open.

Yeah. So I love this place. They've got. The reason they're called Saint Bunny is because they have a rabbit menu.

Fantastic.

So they've got rabbit khinkali and some other dishes. A whole bunch of dishes like rabbit dolma.

Oh, that was delicious.

The rabbit dolma was particularly good. The rabbit khinkali was just khinkali with some rabbit in. Could have been any. Could have been any khinkali. I don't know what they were going for.

The dolma was sensational.

That was really all. The food was great. The khinkali was just sort of of khinkali. It wasn't like a special khinkali. I don't think using rabbit really helps.

I think it's better with pork and beef because it's more succulent and umptuous and juicy. Whereas rabbit doesn't really work for a khinkali filling, I don't think. But it's cool that they were giving it a try.

But yeah, the rest of the menu is great. They have. Once again they've got this great wine selection that's all laid out on shelves with prices on the wines.

You can literally walk around and browse yourself, or you can ask the wine host there to actually tell you what they think you should have. So, yeah, they got a good selection of everything from artisan wines to a few slightly more commercial wines, but mainly focused on artisan wines.

Wines. It's not anywhere near as big a selection as most of the other places we've talked about today, but it's on the list because I think it's just.

It's a great location, the food's great and the overall vibe is good. So that's definitely why it's on the list. It's a good place to go. You'll have a fun time.

Very trendy little place. They also do some classes there. So they do some khinkali making classes. They do beginner wine tasting classes.

They said they were doing dance nights for a while. I don't know if there's some dance nights.

Yeah, maybe, maybe.

But also, I think on the outside area, they have a hookah bar area.

That's the only thing that I'm like, please get rid of the hookah area. Because if people are coming to taste wine and drink wine, I don't want to be smelling hookah the whole time.

Smells and everything. It really is. Tom, the ultimate wine taster is just ruining it.

Can't smell the wine. Stop it.

Yeah, yeah.

But, hey, there's a lot of places in Tbilisi that have, like, mixed like. Yeah, they got the hookah bar as well as the wine bar and restaurant or whatever next to each other. Seems to be that.

That's obviously a popular thing for some people. For me, I'm like, this completely kills it. But fortunately, they're keeping it sort of in the outside area.

So if you're sitting inside, we didn't have any issue with the smells coming in, so.

Exactly. Yeah. Great place, great vibe, great style, great selection, great food.

Yep, yep. Very good. Yeah. Decent service as well. Cocktails also. They have cocktails. So, yeah, really good cocktails.

So, yeah, if you don't just want to drink wine or half your group wants to drink wine and the others don't, they do khinkali classes for tourists. They do wine tasting sessions for tourists as well. So, yeah, it's not just to go in and eat and choose a bottle.

You can actually do a tasting of a few wines. But that's sort of more the introductory place. As we were saying, some places do just the basics. Here's a cazatelli Here's a Saperavi.

And then we're doing the sort of more complex wine tasting introductions, what we're doing with our wine tastings. All right, so next up, probably the place with the smallest selection of wine on the list.

Their own selection.

Their own selection.

This is Carolashvili Wine Cellar, which is sort of right in the heart of downtown as well, but just out of the Medan Central tourist area, but just a little bit up still within the city walls. This place is pretty interesting because it's an old cellar that's at least 100 years old, maybe quite a bit older than that.

I'm not sure if they've had it properly dated or not, but it's a genuine old stone cellar and it's great. Yeah, so it's lovely ambience inside.

It's a family run place, so there'll always be like someone from the family, whether it's their cousin, brother, whatever. Someone from the family is there and they're selling their own wines. They've got a selection of sort of five or six or a few more wines.

Depends on the day and the season and what they've got.

Yeah, very interesting. I'd love to get the full story on that because we haven't really got time for that today.

But I'd be interested to know exactly how all of that came about and how they've got the family tree or anything or whatever's going on.

How they survived the Soviet occupation.

Yeah, maybe there was a break in the middle, who knows? But I mean, I mean, so many winemaking families here because everyone was a winemaking family.

If you can trace your ancestry, you can pretty much assume that you also were making wine the whole time. Yeah, you could say, well, actually, oh, we've been making wine since 500 B.C.

because we could prove our ancestry back then, but you probably can't because it's pretty hard to prove ancestry that far back.

Yeah, yeah, very cute photos, Very cool photos. So, yeah, great place to go. And their main focus is on wine tasting. Just come and taste their win, you know, so they'll have a selection.

You can do three wines, you could do five wines. I think they might be doing a seven wine one occasionally as well.

And then you can have snacks as well. I think they do like yogurt.

Cheese boards and things. Yeah, it's not a full food place. So yeah, as a wine bar it's more of just a wine cellar. It's not really a wine bar as such.

They don't have a big selection, but it's wonderful. Great place to go. Now, speaking of small places, one more on our sort of main list here that's pretty small but is sort of just a wine bar as well.

Just about more of a wine shop. This is Pet Nat wine shop, which is actually opposite rooms hotel. So it's very easy to find.

It is by far the smallest wine bar I've ever been into in my life. It is tiny. There is one small table in the middle which has enough room for about six to eight people.

And then you're surrounded by wine on every shelf outside.

And quite often what you see is there's just people sitting on the steps outside having a glass of wine just outside the wine bar because it really is that small.

So yeah, it's like a wine shop that has a table that you can just buy a wine and sit down and drink it right there if you want. We have done that ourselves, but it's the person who runs it, she's got a great knowledge of.

Well, because it's called Pet Nat, obviously they stock Pet Nats.

They have probably. Well, they at least think they've got the largest selection of pet gnats in Georgia.

And when I went through their selection in the shop, I was like, yeah, they genuinely have managed to pull out some really unusual, interesting, artisan pet nats as well as some of the more well known ones.

Tom, for those who don't know, just a real quick, quick, quick, quick description on what a Pet Nat is.

I think most people have heard of this now, but maybe they don't know how it's made. I think Pet Nat seems to have this revolution going on, the renaissance of Pet nat. This is actually the original style of sparkling wine.

So from the 16th century in France, they accidentally discovered that they sealed a bottle of wine at the end of the autumn when they'd fermented the wine.

It was obviously stored in quite a cold temperature and when the temperature warmed up a little bit in the spring, it started fermenting again inside the bottle. And so when they opened the bottle it was fizzy and that was pretty much it. That was long before the Champagne method when they.

Which is a much more complicated method that of course a lot of sparkling wines are made in the Champagne method now. But this is like the original style and it Seems to have just come back in fashion a lot.

It's just much simpler to make because literally it's just a matter of corking the wine before it finishes fermenting so that some natural gas remains in the wine.

Yeah. So, yeah, tasty, refreshing. Love it.

Yeah, yeah. And easy. So much easier to make that. It means that a lot of small winemakers can make this.

Whereas champagne method's quite a lot of work and you need some special machinery for freezing the neck of the bottle and stuff like that.

That.

So, yeah, great, great stuff. And the wine shop itself just. It has a good selection of still wines as well. It's not just pet nap.

Yeah.

But they do have a really fantastic selection of sparklings.

So, yeah, even if you're just popping in to find an interesting bottle and not really staying there to hang out, but if you do want to hang out, then, yeah, the owner's really friendly.

And she'll have a chat with you and we'll help you find a great pet gnat to take on your way.

All right, a few more small ones to mention as we get towards the end of this episode. I want to mention red and wine. This is on a side street just next to Radisson Hotel.

So if you're staying at the main Radisson Ivaria, then it's just like a two minute walk from there. This is definitely a sort of rough and ready home, rustic sort of downstairs cellar place.

So you're not getting like four star craziness going on here. It's just genuine, authentic, really nice wine. Host who speaks English.

They have a fireplace inside the cellar where they actually cook like ochakuri and other dishes on the fireplace, which is like the home style thing. If you go out to the countryside and they've got a fireplace and you're there in the winter, maybe you quite often have.

The local families will cook directly on the fireplace under the chimney. So they're doing that right in the heart of the city, which is very cool. Not a massive selection of wine, but a good selection of wine.

All you need.

Yeah, he's sort of curated a nice smaller list of stuff that he thinks is great and I think his selection is really good. Yeah, they do stuff on a Tuesday.

Normally if you pop in on a Tuesday, you'll probably find a few other people in there, maybe some foreigners as well. Well, who you can meet and talk about wine or just pop in there anytime because they're friendly hosts. Another one to mention, this one.

We haven't actually been to their Tbilisi location. Yet. But we've been to their chateau in Karketti many times and had food and wine there, which is fantastic.

At Mosmieri Tapas, they were closed during COVID and they're reopened now, which is great. And we've been meaning to go and actually try the tapas and see how it pairs with their different wines.

We're coming, guys.

We are. We are going to go. But they're mainly focused on their own wines, of which they have quite a large range of wines.

I think sort of like eight or ten wines at least of their own styles.

All very good wines.

Yeah, lots of very good wines. So they've got some excellent aged Sapporavi. They've got a really wonderful Sapporavi. That's a very dark, made from Zaporavi, which I love.

It's one of my favorites in Georgia. Yep, amazing. And yeah, so you can go to their wine bar to taste those wines along with various tapas. And it's right in the heart of downtown.

So, yeah, once again, that's. It's very near the wine museum. It's just on the cobbled street, the cobbled walking street. So super convenient location to go see them.

Another one that I think is really fun is called Vinoground. This is a small cellar.

Maybe you can fit about 20 or 30 people in there if you want to squeeze in a bit and do a quick wine tasting or a long wine tasting. They actually offer a wine tasting of 10 wines, so they've always got a lot of bottles open.

They're right on Kingarekle II street, which is also sort of part of the main sort of walking street area, but a little further up towards the Peace Bridge.

And it's just this corner wine bar, but because it's on this quite touristy restaurant street, you might sort of look at it and assume it's just going to be touristy, which, I mean, I suppose it is. It's mostly tourists that go there. But the owners are great, really charismatic, really helpful with the wines.

And you'll taste sort of a mix of things, from artisan wines to more commercial wines. And. And pretty much they'll just start pouring you stuff. You walk in, they'll just start pouring stuff and you'll be like, okay, what's going on?

Some of it's free, some of it. They're going to sort of say, okay, right, let's do an actual tasting. It's going to cost this much. Maybe you can book in advance.

But yeah, I mean, they don't. If you're A single person. They'll probably help you out as well. But obviously if you've got a few people, then that works better for them.

But they've got a nice little outside area, outside the cellar, right on that busy restaurant street.

So if you just want that ambience of the restaurant street, but without going to one of the very touristy restaurants, this is a really good place to go. Yeah, I like it. Yeah. Just a few minutes walk outside of the center of downtown. Yeah. Great. One more I wanted to mention.

This is like a bonus one wine effect in Varque. It's the only one from this list that I. Well, we said Mosbieri. We haven't been to their current new location, but.

Yeah, we know.

But we know their wines very well. And their food, obviously in Karketti is fantastic. And we go to that place quite often in Karketti, but this one's totally new for us.

But I thought it looked great. The owners seemed really helpful when we called them Wine Effect in Varque. They've got a little outside courtyard area. They've got an indoor area.

They seem to have a really good selection of wines. I think that's. It's going to be a great place. I've been looking forward to going to there. So if you haven't been there yet, go there.

Because the only other one on our entire list that's in varquet was 8,000 vintages and varquet's.

Oh, you know who we didn't mention?

Gvino G Vino also.

They just opened up in the Pullman, also in Varque.

So, yeah, GVO Access Towers. They're also a tap and wine focused. I really love the way that GVDO do their menu.

So what they do is instead of going, this is an amber, this is a red, this is a white, they do like, this is an expressive, light type of wine. And then they'll have a list of like 10 wines that are expressive and light. And then like, this is a bold, heavy, tannic sort of wine.

And they've got a list of like 10, 20 wines. Because the problem is that you might buy an amber.

Amber is very complicated wine to understand because you can go from everything that's so close to a white wine that you might think it's a white wine all the way through to. It's so heavy that you'd close your eyes and go, this must be a red wine, right? Yeah, this must be a pretty heavy red wine.

So you can, if you've just got a list of wine that says amber wines, you're going to look at that list and go, hey, well, I'll just order this one. That sounds interesting and get it and go. That was not what I was expecting it to be.

I thought that would be like a heavy tannic circadian wine, and it turns out to be this really light and fruity and bright Karkadian wine.

Yeah.

So you just. Yeah. You don't know what you're getting. But with this sort of explanation instead, which they're not the only place doing this.

I mean, I'm not saying they're unique in this. This has been done internationally in a lot of wine bars. They're just one of the few in Georgia that I've seen that's doing it that way.

And I think it's a really good way to help people who don't know exactly what wine they're buying, aren't familiar with the style and aren't familiar with the winemakers yet to get the sort of wine that they're going to enjoy based on what their tastes and preferences are.

And we actually met the owners at the Zero Compromise Wine Festival this year, and they've actually branched out from being restaurant owners to being winemakers. And so they're making their own wines they were doing for their first vintage. Good job, guys. Really good job.

So they're actually stocking them at Giovino, so you can go and taste some of the. The owner's own wines that they've making. And yeah, they're doing a good job.

Yeah. Manavi Wines, I believe is their brand name now for those. Those wines.

And yeah, pretty much everything I tasted from their selection, I was like, wow, okay, you've nailed it. It's. It's both classic, but also a little bit fresh and new.

They've managed to integrate some modern style with the traditional coquettian method as well. Yeah, loved it, Loved it. So that's quite a lot of wine.

Bars, I guess, pretty substantial list. We're going to keep you very drunk during your time in Tbilisi, so you're welcome.

Yeah, yeah. Now, look, this is a fraction of the amount of wine bars around Tbilisi as well.

There's lots. These are just some of our favorites.

There's loads of places that, you know, they're just in downtown and you can just walk in and you know they'll have like wine tasting Reddit outside. The problem is with these is that the quality really varies as to what you're. You're gonna get.

I haven't really tasted that many of the very obviously touristy ones.

And I sort of recommend to everybody, step a little bit off the main street and go and find something from our list or go and find something different that's on a side street. There's a few in downtown that I haven't been to yet that I'm pretty sure are gonna be great.

But they haven't made the list because we haven't been there as well. But there's a whole bunch where it's just basically some shop that's selling commercial wines. And they'll be like, come in, come in.

And there's like free wine tasting written on a sign on a piece of.

Cardboard outside, standing there drinking mildiani.

Yeah. Which is fine. There's some good mildiani, but they're not necessarily gonna give you that for free.

They're probably gonna give you the cheapest mildiani for free and then sell you a bottle of average wine.

There's also been some. There's some family ones that they have the wine tasting, and you go there. The wines are a little rough around the area.

Yeah, yeah. There's a few places where it's like, come and drink my homemade wine. And you're like, yeah, this is a bit. Bit dodgy.

Yeah.

So, yeah, choosing a wine bar that's sort of a little bit more established and well known, that has a sort of good mix of artisan wines and.

Good wine host that helps you choose the right wine.

Yeah, I think that makes a huge difference because, yeah, if someone's in a souvenir shop, which often these places are. I've seen a few. There's a few in Old Town where it's a souvenir shop that's selling wine and selling other gifts.

And there's just someone in there who's the.

Basically the cashier pouring some wine for you if that's the place you're walking past and you're actually serious about wine, rather than just someone who's walking around going, free wine. Great.

I don't care if it's good, but if you're slightly interested to see what great Georgian wine is like, then definitely don't choose those places as your first port of call. Because it's a. It's a little bit unfair on Georgian wine to just stick with those sorts of things.

So, yeah, hopefully some great things from the list here that you've managed to make a mental note of. If not, there is an article, isn't there?

Yes, we do have a full article on this that you can go and check out. And you know, now that this episode is out. I will embed it into the article as well. So it's foodfuntravel.com tbilisiwinetasting with hyphens in.

Between each word, I'm guessing.

Yeah, with hyphens. Tbilisi wine tasting.

Nice. All right. Yeah, lots of places. As we said, Tbilisi is sort of like the epicenter of wine bars now.

Other places, as I said, were just like shops that had a bit of wine that got you to come in for free wine tasting in the old town, or restaurants that had a reasonably good wine list and that sort of thing. But the artisan wine scene has exploded.

And along with that trend, wine bar scene has also exploded in order to host these wines and help people explore, explore these wines. So it's great. I love it. We're out all the time going to different places to drink wine.

Because he's constantly there, constantly having winemakers bring him new wines. And he's always saying, tom, try this, try this, try this, try this. You're going to like this.

Well, I mean, Zaza does his own wine tasting on stuff Saturdays afternoons as well. So he's.

Most Saturdays. So, yeah, always call them.

Yeah. Winemakers bring in their wines for his wine tasting on the Saturdays and then the next Wednesday comes along and Zaza's got. I got a wine for you.

Well, I'm normally at the wine tasting on Saturdays as well, so I taste those. But I mean, he's. There's so many wines. This is the thing.

There are so many wines and there's so many new winemakers starting up that you just can't keep up. Even if you're drinking wine every single day and trying like 10 wines a day, you are never going to get through all of the selection. So.

So the only way to do it is to go and have a few sips of wine. Because if you're opening 10 bottles, it's going to be a bit too much for anyone, isn't it? So the wine bars are good for.