Wine tasting in Tbilisi: best bars, shops and experiences

Tbilisi as a wine destination in its own right

Most people assume that to taste Georgian wine seriously, you need to travel to Kakheti. That assumption is increasingly wrong. Tbilisi has developed one of the most exciting natural wine scenes in Europe — a dense cluster of wine bars, cellars, and specialist shops in the Old Town and Vera neighbourhoods where you can taste hundreds of Georgian wines without leaving the city.

For visitors with limited time, Tbilisi’s wine scene offers an extraordinary introduction to the country’s indigenous varieties and winemaking traditions. For those planning a longer trip, the city is an excellent starting point before heading to the wine regions. Either way, this guide will take you to the right places.

Before diving in, it’s worth understanding the basics of what you’ll be drinking. Georgian wine is unlike wine from anywhere else — the qvevri winemaking tradition and the range of amber wines are genuinely unique.

The best wine bars in Tbilisi

Vino Underground

The bar that effectively started Tbilisi’s natural wine scene. Located in a basement on Galaktion Tabidze Street in the Old Town, Vino Underground has been championing small natural wine producers since 2011. The wine list is exclusively Georgian natural wine — no compromises. The staff know every producer personally and pour with passion.

Expect deep amber wines, long-macerated reds, and a room full of wine-obsessed locals and visiting sommeliers. The bar hosts regular producer tastings and is a good place to get tasting notes and producer recommendations for your Kakheti trip.

Wine Bar G.Vino

One of the most beautiful wine bar settings in Tbilisi — a restored caravanserai in the Narikala area of the Old Town with an open courtyard. G.Vino stocks an impressive range of both natural and conventional Georgian wines, making it a slightly more accessible introduction for visitors new to Georgian wine.

The food menu is good — a spread of Georgian small plates that pair well with a structured amber wine tasting.

Garage Wine

A relaxed, industrial-chic bar in the Fabrika complex (a converted Soviet-era garment factory turned cultural hub). Garage Wine specialises in natural Georgian wines with a well-curated list spanning all major regions. It attracts a younger crowd and stays open late, making it one of the better wine-with-nightlife options in Tbilisi.

The Fabrika complex itself is worth a visit — it’s the social heart of Tbilisi’s creative scene and a good place for dinner before wine.

Pheasant’s Tears Tbilisi

The Tbilisi outpost of the celebrated Sighnaghi winery (see our top wineries guide) serves the full range of their qvevri wines alongside a traditional Georgian food menu. The atmosphere is warm and candlelit — genuinely one of the nicest restaurant-bars in the Old Town.

This is an ideal choice if you want to understand one producer in depth before visiting their cellar in Kakheti.

Amra Wine Bar

A charming small bar on Erekle II Street in the heart of the Old Town. Amra focuses on natural and organic wines from small producers, with a particular strength in less-known western Georgian varieties from Imereti, Samegrelo, and Adjara. Good for stepping beyond the standard Rkatsiteli-Saperavi axis.

Wine House (Ghvinis Sakhli)

A more traditional wine bar popular with older Tbilisi locals — the kind of place where you sit at communal tables and the tamada (toastmaster) stands periodically to deliver elaborate toasts. Less focused on natural wine than the other bars in this list, but a culturally important experience for understanding how Georgians actually drink wine.

Wine shops for buying bottles

Wine Factory No. 1

Located in a converted industrial building on Kostava Street, Wine Factory No. 1 is part wine shop, part museum, part tasting venue. The shop stocks an extraordinary range of Georgian wines — hundreds of labels including rare small-producers not found elsewhere — alongside wine equipment, books, and tasting accessories.

The attached bar allows you to open any bottle from the shop for a small corkage fee, making it the best place in Tbilisi to systematically taste your way through specific producers or varieties before buying.

Georgian Wine House

A well-stocked shop near the Dry Bridge flea market with a helpful English-speaking staff. Good range of both conventional and natural wines, with competitive prices. They offer vacuum packing for transport home.

Prospero’s Books & Wine

Part bookshop, part wine bar on Rustaveli Avenue — an institution for English-speaking expats and tourists. The wine selection is curated and well-chosen; the atmosphere is bookish and relaxed. Good for a quieter alternative to the busier Old Town bars.

Wine tasting experiences and tours

Marani wine cellar tours

Several historic wine cellars (marani) in Tbilisi’s Old Town offer guided tastings focused on qvevri wines. These typically last 60–90 minutes and include six to eight wines with explanatory tasting notes. Look for cellars in the Abanotubani (sulfur baths) district.

Organised wine tours from Tbilisi

If you want to understand the full picture — city wine bars followed by a Kakheti cellar visit — a day tour that combines both is the most efficient option.

Book a full-day Kakheti wine tour with 9 tastings departing Tbilisi

Street food and wine combination

Tbilisi’s food and wine culture are inseparable. A guided street food tour that includes wine pairings with local dishes is one of the best ways to understand the cuisine-wine relationship.

Book a Tbilisi street food and local markets tour

What to order: a quick ordering guide

If you walk into a Georgian wine bar and aren’t sure what to order, here is a practical approach:

For amber wine beginners: Start with an Imeretian amber — lighter skin contact, more approachable texture. Ask for Tsitska or Tsolikouri.

For confident wine drinkers: Go straight to Kakhetian amber — Rkatsiteli or Kisi with full skin contact. This is where the tradition lives.

For red wine drinkers: Order Saperavi. It is Georgia’s greatest red grape — deeply coloured, tannic, with black fruit and violet. Start here before exploring more unusual reds.

For wine explorers: Ask the staff for something unusual. Request Shavkapito, Goruli Mtsvane, Krakhuna, Dzelshavi, or Aladasturi — varieties almost unknown outside Georgia.

Avoid: Wines labelled only as “semi-sweet” — these are often industrial wines with residual sugar and do not represent the best of Georgian winemaking.

Wine and food pairing in Tbilisi restaurants

Georgian cuisine and Georgian wine were developed alongside each other over millennia — the pairing instincts are built in. A few key principles:

• Amber wine with khinkali: The tannin and acidity cut through the fat of the lamb or pork filling perfectly.
• Amber wine with walnut dishes: The nutty, oxidative notes in the wine echo the walnuts in dishes like lobiani (bean bread) and badrijani nigvzit (eggplant with walnut).
• Saperavi with mtsvadi: Georgia’s oak-grilled meat skewers need a bold red alongside them.
• Light Imeretian amber with fresh cheeses: Sulguni and fresh imeruli cheese pair beautifully with lighter-bodied amber wines.

For restaurants, read our Tbilisi street food guide for where to eat alongside your wine explorations.

Wine events in Tbilisi

New Wine Festival (May): Held in the grounds of the Ethnographic Museum, this is Georgia’s largest wine festival dedicated to natural and qvevri wines. Hundreds of producers from across the country pour wines over a weekend. Tickets are inexpensive and the atmosphere is exhilarating.

Wine in the City (various dates): Rotating pop-up wine events across different Tbilisi venues throughout the year.

Tbilisi Wine Week: A more trade-oriented event with public tastings, typically held in October.

Check event listings on the Georgian Wine Association website and local Facebook groups for current schedules.

Practical information

Neighbourhoods: The Old Town (Altstadt/Abanotubani area) and Vera have the highest concentration of good wine bars. Fabrika in the Chugureti district is excellent for a more relaxed evening.

Prices: Wine by the glass typically costs 8–20 GEL at natural wine bars. Bottles in restaurants range from 30–150 GEL depending on the producer and venue. Wine shops sell the same bottles for considerably less.

Opening hours: Most wine bars open at 18:00 and stay open until midnight or later on weekends. Some, like G.Vino and Wine Factory No. 1, open earlier (from 12:00) and serve food throughout the day.

Language: English is spoken in virtually all the wine bars and specialist shops listed above. Staff are generally knowledgeable and happy to guide you through unfamiliar varieties.

FAQ

Is Georgian wine expensive compared to European wine? Domestic Georgian wine is remarkably affordable — quality bottles from good producers start at 15 GEL (around €5) in shops. Wine bars and restaurants add a markup, but prices remain lower than comparable natural wine venues in Paris or London.

Can I find Georgian wine outside Georgia? Yes, but availability is limited and prices are much higher. Major cities with Georgian communities (New York, London, Paris, Prague) have specialist importers. It is always better and cheaper to buy in Georgia.

What is the difference between Georgian wine and orange wine? Orange wine is a modern term for skin-contact white wines. Georgian amber wine made in qvevri is the original and most significant style of orange wine, but not all orange wines are Georgian.

Should I visit wine regions or stick to Tbilisi? Both, ideally. Tbilisi’s wine bars give you breadth — dozens of producers and varieties in one evening. Kakheti gives you depth — the land, the people, the cellar experience. They are complementary, not interchangeable.

A systematic guide to tasting Georgian wine in Tbilisi

If you want to make your Tbilisi wine time genuinely educational rather than simply pleasurable (though it will be both), here is a structured approach that works well over two or three evenings.

Evening 1: Learning the amber spectrum

Start at Vino Underground with a deliberate tasting of three amber wines in order of skin contact intensity:

1. A light Imeretian amber (Tsitska or Tsolikouri from Ramaz Nikoladze or another Imereti producer) — pale gold, delicate tannin, aromatic
2. A medium-intensity amber (Chinuri from Iago’s Wine, or a Kartli producer) — medium amber colour, more structure
3. A full Kakhetian amber (Rkatsiteli or Kisi from Pheasant’s Tears or Our Wine) — deep amber, significant tannin, complex

Tasting these three in sequence reveals the entire stylistic spectrum of Georgian amber wine and gives you a framework for everything you will taste subsequently. Ask the bar staff to guide the flight — they will do so with enthusiasm.

Evening 2: Exploring red wines and rare varieties

Visit G.Vino or Wine Factory No. 1 with a specific focus on varieties you have not encountered anywhere else:

• Saperavi from a serious qvevri producer (this is the variety’s truest expression)
• Shavkapito (a rare Kartli red with herbal character)
• Aladasturi (a rare Adjara red, very limited production)
• Dzelshavi (an ancient red variety from east Georgia, almost never seen internationally)

These wines simply do not exist outside Georgia. Tasting them in a Tbilisi wine bar with a knowledgeable staff member explaining the varieties is one of the most genuinely educational wine experiences available anywhere in the world.

Evening 3: The producer focus

Choose one producer and taste their full range — Pheasant’s Tears is the easiest for this exercise (their Tbilisi bar has the complete portfolio). Tasting multiple wines from a single producer, in the order the producer recommends, gives a different kind of understanding: you see how the same hand interprets different varieties and different winemaking decisions across a range.

The Tbilisi natural wine community

Tbilisi’s wine bar scene is not merely commercial — it is a community. The natural wine enthusiasts who populate Vino Underground and similar bars are genuinely passionate and will often offer their own recommendations, opinions, and stories. A willingness to engage in conversation about what you are tasting (even with very limited wine knowledge) will be generously received.

Several of these bars host regular producer evenings — visits from specific winemakers who pour their wines and discuss their approach. These events are not heavily advertised; following the bars’ social media accounts (Facebook and Instagram are the primary channels) is the best way to find them. If you encounter one, attend: tasting wine in the presence of the person who made it while they explain their decisions is the highest form of wine education.

Georgian wine terminology you will encounter

In Tbilisi wine bars, you will encounter the following terms regularly:

Qvevri (also kvevri): The buried clay vessel used for Georgian winemaking. “Qvevri wine” means wine fermented and aged in this vessel.

Skin contact: The extended contact of grape juice with grape skins during and after fermentation, producing amber colour and tannin in white wines.

Native/indigenous: Used to describe grape varieties originating in Georgia, as opposed to international varieties (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, etc.).

Rtveli: The Georgian grape harvest, September–October.

Amber/orange: The colour and style category for Georgian skin-contact white wines. “Orange wine” is the international term; “amber” is the Georgian term.

Tatara: Thickened grape juice, used to make churchkhela. Also a general term for various grape juice preparations.

Chacha: Georgian grape brandy, distilled from the pressed grape skins after winemaking. The Georgian equivalent of grappa. Strong (60–70% ABV typically), served as a digestif or welcome drink. You will be offered it.

The wine bar map: neighbourhood by neighbourhood

Old Town: Vino Underground (basement, Galaktion Tabidze), G.Vino (courtyard, near Narikala), Pheasant’s Tears (Sioni Street), and smaller bars on the Leselidze and Erekle II streets. The highest concentration; easiest to walk between.

Vera: Several wine bars scattered through this leafy residential neighbourhood. More local-oriented than Old Town; slightly less polished but often excellent.

Fabrika complex: Garage Wine and several other bars in the converted factory complex on Kostava Street. Good for combining wine with the broader social scene of the complex.

Rustaveli area: Wine Factory No. 1 is the key stop here — more retail shop than bar, but you can taste almost anything from the stock for a corkage fee.

Understanding what you taste: amber wine basics

Most of the wines poured at Tbilisi’s natural wine bars are amber wines — white grapes made with extended skin contact in the traditional qvevri method. For visitors encountering this style for the first time, some context helps:

The tannin: Georgian amber wine has tannin — the dry, grippy sensation usually associated with red wine. This comes from the grape skins, seeds, and stems in contact with the wine for weeks or months. It is not a flaw; it is the structure of the wine.

The colour: Ranges from pale gold (light skin contact, 2–4 weeks) to deep amber-orange (long contact, 6 months or more). The darker the colour, the more extracted the wine and generally the more structured it will be.

The varieties: At Tbilisi wine bars you will most commonly encounter Rkatsiteli (the dominant Kakheti white grape — structured, mineral, amber at its most classic) and Mtsvane (more aromatic, floral, lighter), Kisi (increasingly valued, more tropical notes), and from Imereti, Tsitska (lighter, more citrus, often with less skin contact). Asking the bar staff to guide you through the varieties is entirely appropriate.

The temperature: Georgian amber wine is served at slightly warmer temperatures than conventional white wine — around 14–16°C. The tannin becomes harsh when served very cold; the aromatics open significantly as the wine warms.

What to buy before you leave

Tbilisi has several excellent wine retail options for taking bottles home:

Wine Factory No. 1 (Weriko Anjaparidze St, near Didube): The best selection of Georgian natural wines in Tbilisi. The knowledgeable staff can guide your selection by region, variety, and winemaker.

Vino Underground bottle shop: The wine bar stocks a rotating selection of bottles for retail purchase.

Wineries directly: If visiting Kakheti, buy directly from the producers you visit — the pricing is the best available anywhere and the wines are often exclusive to the winery.

Airport duty-free: Limited selection and higher prices, but adequate for last-minute purchases.

Related guides

• Amber wine guide — the full context for Georgian skin-contact wines
• Kakheti wine tours — taking wine tasting from the city to the source
• Best wineries in Georgia — the producers whose wines you are tasting in the bars
• Qvevri winemaking guide — how the wines are made

FAQ

Which Tbilisi wine bar should I visit first? Vino Underground is the standard starting recommendation — it has consistent quality, knowledgeable staff, and the breadth of selection to give a useful first introduction to Georgian natural wine. If you want a more intimate bar experience, Ghvinis Ubani (Wine Quarter) has excellent staff and a more focused selection.

What do Tbilisi wine bars cost? Wine by the glass ranges from 10–25 GEL at most natural wine bars. A tasting evening with food (Georgian small plates) typically costs 60–120 GEL per person. Compared to comparable wine bar experiences in Paris, London, or New York, this is exceptionally good value for the quality level.

Can I taste Georgian wine without visiting a wine bar? Yes — Wine Factory No. 1 allows tastings from their bottle stock at a small corkage fee. Some wine shops in the Old Town also offer tasting facilities. But the wine bar format, with food and atmosphere, is the most complete way to experience Georgian wine culture.