Grape Harvest - Rtveli Tour from Batumi with a Feast at the Winery

Rtveli is the Georgian grape harvest, and in September and October it sweeps the whole country: families gather at the vineyards, cut the bunches, press the juice and set the tables. This tour is built so that you end up inside the celebration instead of watching it through a bus window. At a family winery in Adjara you get pruning shears and a basket, they show you your rows, and for an hour you pick grapes with mountains all around - then you put on rubber boots and stomp your harvest with your feet, Celentano style. The juice you press will become wine long after you leave, but it starts with you.

Then, if you like, a masterclass: you dip a string of walnuts into hot grape pelamushi and take home your own churchkhela. In the evening the hosts lay a big shared table: home-cooked dishes, with plenty for vegetarians to build a full dinner from, wine made right here, and Georgian dances. We wrote about how such a table works and why it never stays quiet in our article about the Georgian feast - here you will see all of it live.

The winery is one place for everything: picking, stomping, churchkhela, the feast and the tasting follow one another with no transfers. And on the way there you take in the key sights of the Adzharistskali gorge: the confluence of two rivers, waterfalls and the arched stone bridge of Queen Tamara.

Who Will Enjoy This Tour

Families with children - kids usually get the best part: stomping grapes and dipping churchkhela. Anyone into food and wine - the tasting here is not "three sips in a cellar" but part of a feast with the farmer who made the wine. And those who have already seen Batumi and want one day of real rural Georgia: the smell of pressed grapes, wet stones by the waterfall and a long table under a vine pergola.

The group tour is conducted in Russian by a Georgian guide who grew up with rtveli himself. He can communicate with English-speaking guests through Google Translate, and at the winery the harvest, the stomping and the feast need no translation at all.

Practical Details

A group of up to 9 people travels in a comfortable minivan such as a Mercedes Vito with a driver-guide in one person: he drives and tells the stories. A group of 10 or more goes by Mercedes Sprinter minibus with a separate driver and guide. On a private tour we pick you up at your address; on a group tour we send you the nearest bus stop on the pickup route through Batumi and drop you off at the same spot in the evening.

We will contact you 2-3 days before the tour to take a prepayment. The prepayment is non-refundable; the only exception is a cancellation on our side, when the tour cannot be run. Rain does not stop the tour, Georgians do not pause rtveli for it either; we only cancel in case of a hurricane. Trip details and the guide's contacts are sent one day before departure.