Wineries near Tbilisi: Chateau Mukhrani and the Kartli Cellars

Tbilisi is known for its wine, and most visitors assume the cellars are a 2-hour drive away in Kakheti. Plenty are closer. Kartli, the region around the city, has a restored royal wine estate, a cluster of family qvevri cellars and a sparkling wine house, all within about an hour. Here's what you need to know about Chateau Mukhrani, the smaller wineries, getting there and planning the day.

The wineries near Tbilisi at a glance

Eight wineries sit within easy reach of Tbilisi. Chateau Mukhrani is the big name and the only one set up like a visitor attraction; the rest are small cellars where the family pours and you book ahead.

Every one of them needs a booking for a tasting. Mukhrani takes the most visitors and the others are working family cellars, so a message a day ahead is the polite minimum.

Chateau Mukhrani

If you visit one winery near Tbilisi, make it this one. Chateau Mukhrani is a royal estate in the village of Mukhrani, about 40 minutes' drive from the city, with a white palace, formal gardens, a working cellar and a restaurant. It's the most polished winery visit in Kartli, and the one I'd pick for anyone who has never done a cellar tour.

The history of the Mukhrani palace

The estate belonged to the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi, Georgia's royal family, from the 16th century. In the 19th century Prince Ivane Mukhranbatoni came home from France set on making European-style wine on his own land. He bottled the first Mukhrani wine in 1878 and finished the palace in 1885, designed by French architects, with gardens laid out by a landscaper from Versailles. The house became a meeting place for the Georgian elite of the day, and the writers Ilia Chavchavadze and Akaki Tsereteli were among his guests.

The good years didn't last. Ivane died in 1895, and in 1897 his son sold the estate to the state treasury. Most of the original furniture was stolen over the following decades, and the palace was badly damaged after the National Guard made it a headquarters in the early 1990s. Restoration began in the early 2000s, the cellars were renovated in 2003, and today the estate runs as a winery again: the palace, the gardens, the cellars, the old production building and the restaurant.

Tours, tastings and the restaurant at Chateau Mukhrani

The guided tour covers the estate's history and the family's place in Georgian history, then takes you down into the cellar, which holds a steady temperature all year, and ends with a tasting. The standard tasting is four wines with cheese or other local snacks, from a range of about 13 wines and a chacha, so ask what's open that day. You can walk the gardens without joining a tour, and the estate also keeps horses for riding and will pack a picnic basket for a lunch on the lawn.

Three bottles stand out. Goruli Mtsvane is a dry white from a local Kartli grape, with yellow plum, melon and citrus. The Reserve Royale Saperavi is a deep purple red with mulberry, blackberry and cherry that can age for up to 15 years. The Muscat is a dark amber dessert wine that tastes of figs, prunes and chocolate. I'd start with the Goruli Mtsvane, because it's the one you won't see on every wine list in Tbilisi.

The Royal Cellar restaurant serves Georgian and European food, including dishes recreated from the prince's table, and the staff will match wines to whatever you order. A long lunch here after a morning at the churches of Mtskheta is my favorite day out of Tbilisi.

The Chateau Mukhrani wine bar in Old Tbilisi

No car, or no time? The estate runs a wine bar at 6 Samghebro Street on Meidan Square, at the foot of Old Tbilisi and a short walk from the bathhouses of Abanotubani. You can taste and buy the Mukhrani range there, with a plate of Georgian cheese on the side.

It has none of the palace or the gardens, so I treat it as a shop with glasses rather than a replacement for the trip. It's the place I'd send anyone who liked a Mukhrani bottle at dinner and wants to try the rest of the range, or who wants to buy a few bottles without carrying them back from Kartli.

Order by the glass first and buy the bottle you liked best on the way out.

Natural wine in Saguramo and Chardakhi

Mukhrani is the polished estate. The other side of Kartli wine is the small family cellar making wine in qvevri, egg-shaped clay jars buried in the ground, where the winemaker or a relative pours. Most of these cellars sit in two villages near Mtskheta: Saguramo, on the right bank of the Aragvi River about 35 minutes from Tbilisi, and Chardakhi, off the main highway west of Mtskheta. None of them is set up for walk-ins the way Mukhrani is, so book ahead.

Iago's Winery, Chardakhi

Iago's makes only two wines, both in qvevri and both organic: a dry white from Chinuri, a crisp Kartli grape, and a dry red Saperavi. That's the whole range, and I like it for exactly that reason. You taste in a family cellar with the people who made the wine, and two glasses tell you more about qvevri than a flight of ten.

Book by phone or through the winery's Facebook page. Bolt is the easy way out; on a budget, take a van from Didube and walk in from the village.

Kolkhis Ezo, Chardakhi

Kolkhis Ezo is a family winery reached by the West Highway, started by a family who moved to Kartli from Samegrelo in western Georgia. They set up a cellar and combined the winemaking traditions of both ends of the country, and they pour artisan whites and reds from both. In the east, white grapes often sit on their skins for months, which is where Georgia's amber wine comes from, so a tasting here is a quick lesson in how much the method changes the glass.

Sevsamora, Saguramo

Sevsamora sits on the right bank of the Aragvi near Mtskheta and works its own organic vineyards. It makes classic Georgian wines alongside the organic range, which makes it the cellar I'd choose for a group where one person wants natural wine and another just wants a good dry red. It's a regular stop on Kartli wine tours, usually paired with Mukhrani and Kolkhis Ezo.

Guramishvili's Marani and Kapistoni, Saguramo

Two more cellars share the village. Guramishvili's Marani is a 19th-century winery about 35 minutes from Tbilisi, and Kapistoni is a family-run producer making natural wine in qvevri. Saguramo is close enough to Mtskheta that either fits into a morning at the churches, and if you book two cellars in the same village you lose almost no time between them.

Ori Marani in Igoeti

Ori Marani, in the village of Igoeti further west in Kartli, is run by a French winemaker and pours Georgian and French-style wines side by side. It's further out than the Saguramo cellars, so it shows up on two-day wine tours more often than on half-day trips. If you're already driving west for Gori and Uplistsikhe, it makes an easy stop on the way.

Bagrationi 1882 on the edge of Tbilisi

The closest winery to the city center isn't in a village at all. Bagrationi 1882 makes sparkling wine at a factory on Tbilisi's northern outskirts and runs walk-throughs of the production line with a tasting of its sparkling wines from Georgian grapes. There's no vineyard view and no long village lunch, but it's a short Bolt ride from the center and the only sparkling wine visit on this list. Tours run by arrangement, so contact the factory to book and to confirm the price.

If even that is too far, the wine tastings in Tbilisi's bars pour four wines for 35 to 45 GEL, a few minutes' walk from most hotels.

The Iori Valley: the nearest Kakheti wineries

If your heart is set on Kakheti, the region that makes about 70% of Georgian wine, the Iori Valley on its near side is about 45 minutes from Tbilisi. It has no hill towns or big monasteries, so it suits a half day of cellars and nothing else. For Sighnaghi, Telavi and the big Alazani Valley estates you need a full day with about 2 hours of driving each way, and the best wineries in Kakheti deserve that day more than a rushed afternoon.

Kartli wine: the grapes to taste

Kartli wraps around Tbilisi to the west and north, and its grapes are not the Kakheti names you see on every menu in town. A Kartli tasting is the chance to try them where they grow.

My rule for a Kartli tasting: go easy on the Saperavi, which you'll drink all week in Tbilisi, and spend your glasses on Goruli Mtsvane, Chinuri and Tavkveri. Those are the bottles you won't find again easily once you're home.

How to get to the wineries near Tbilisi

No train or bus runs to Mukhrani, and the family cellars sit in villages off the main road, so a car is the realistic way to see more than one winery. You have five options.

Bolt is the simple choice for a single winery. A ride to Mtskheta costs about 15 to 25 GEL one way and Mukhrani is further, so expect more. The weak point is the ride back, because village wineries aren't on a busy pickup route; ask the cellar to call you a car, or book the same driver for the return. Book through the app, the same rule as for any taxi in Tbilisi, and the price is fixed before you get in.

The cheapest way out is the van from Didube bus station to Mtskheta, about 2 GEL and 20 to 30 minutes, and from Mtskheta a short taxi gets you to Saguramo. Vans also run toward Mukhrani from Tbilisi and Mtskheta, but they are slow and hard to work out, and I'd only try it with a whole free day.

Kartli wine tours from Tbilisi

If you'd rather not plan, a tour handles the driving and the bookings. The Kartli tours sold from Tbilisi fall into three types.

For one or two people, the Mtskheta and tasting tour is fair value, because it bundles the churches, the cellar and the transport. For a group of four, Bolt there and back with a tasting you booked yourself usually works out cheaper. The Kartli wine tour is the one to pick if wine is the whole point of the day, since it covers three different styles of winery in about 5 hours.

Two winery day plans from Tbilisi

Both plans fit in a day with a relaxed start, and both put the drinking at the end, when nobody has anywhere to drive but home.

Mtskheta and Chateau Mukhrani

The classic pairing: the old capital's churches in the morning, the royal estate in the afternoon.

The churches and the river views make a full morning on their own, so a day trip to Mtskheta earns its place even without the wine.

A natural wine day in Saguramo and Chardakhi

For drinkers who care more about the cellar than the palace. Book both cellars ahead and hire a driver for the day.

Bottles from the cellar door are the best souvenir of a day like this. Shipping wine out of Georgia is hard, so most people pack the bottles in their luggage and fly home with them.

When to visit the wineries near Tbilisi

Spring and autumn are best. May and June are green and mild, and September and October bring the harvest: Rtveli, the grape harvest, runs from late August to late October, with most of the picking between early September and about 20 October. That's also Mukhrani's busiest stretch, especially August and September, so book the tasting and the restaurant well ahead in those months.

July and August can reach 35 to 40°C, which makes a palace garden hard work in the afternoon; go early and keep the outdoor part short. Winter is quiet, and since the cellars hold the same temperature all year, a tasting works in any season. I like a gray November day at Mukhrani with the restaurant almost to myself.