When the word for ‘cheers’ [Gaumarjos] translates to ‘to victory,’ it tells you a lot about the role of wine drinking in a country that has been racked by attacks for millennia.

Wine in the Caucasian country of Georgia is not just a drink. It is an integral part of elaborate feasts called ‘supra‘ led by a ‘tamada‘ or toastmaster, who makes fiery toasts using scooped-out animal horns without ever getting drunk. It is a celebration—of a people holding onto their own identity. Hoping for wins at war. Winning those wars. Rejoicing in those wins. Whether the borders expanded or shrunk.

On a spiritual level, Georgia’s Christian orthodox monks have been making bread and wine for its liturgy from the time Christianity landed on the country’s doorstep in 326 CE. The bread and wine symbolising Christ’s flesh and blood.

Wine routes crisscross the entire nation, at times leading to small family-owned wine cellars, and at others to gigantic corporations. At times the wines find their way into exclusive branded high-end glass bottles and at others into ordinary plastic containers with gaudy caps. Each area in Georgia, except for the soaring Caucasus mountains, produces an indigenous wine. The most famous region being Kakheti.

But Georgia’s tryst with wine is older than Christianity and empires. In 2017, scientists identified the world’s oldest wine close to the capital Tbilisi. Dated 6000 BCE, the remains lay inside buried clay vessels called qvevri in which grapes, together with their pips and stalks, were left to ferment. The unbroken 8,000-year-old UNESCO-listed wine-making technique is still in practice today, creating an earthy golden drink quite unlike its Western sanitised counterpart.

Add to that over 500 endemic grape species and Georgia has the perfect reason to revel as the original owners of both wine-making and the art of raising a toast, wine in hand. 🙂

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[This blog post is part of a series from my travels to Georgia for 17 days in June 2026. To read more posts in my Georgia series, please click here.]