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Visit Georgia

At some point in the evening a man you met an hour ago stands up, holds his glass at chest height, and talks for four minutes about your grandparents, whom he has never met and whose names he does not know. This is not small talk; the tamada works through the dead, the living, children not yet born. You drink after each one. The wine has come out of a qvevri, a clay vessel buried to the neck under the floor, a method UNESCO put on its intangible heritage list. Nobody tells you when it ends. Around midnight you realise you have been crying slightly.

Practical

Cost
$1,200–2,500 for two weeks
Best time
Late spring and early autumn; mountain roads open roughly June to October
Difficulty
Moderate
Time it takes
Ten days to a fortnight; a week only covers Tbilisi and Kakheti
What people get wrong
People try to reach the high Caucasus in April or November and find the passes shut. And they treat a supra as a drinking contest rather than a slow structure with a chairman, which ends badly by the fifth toast.

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