Rtveli — what the Georgian grape harvest actually involves

If you can pick when to come to Kakheti, come for rtveli. It is not staged for visitors; it is simply the fortnight when the entire region has the same job.

When it happens

Roughly mid-September to mid-October. The dates shift every year depending on the weather, and they vary by grape. Whites are generally picked first, Saperavi later.

If you need a specific week, book early. This is the hardest fortnight of the year to find a bed in Kakheti, and the house has four rooms.

What actually happens

You cut grapes. You start early because of the heat. You are handed secateurs and a crate, told which bunches to leave alone, and put to work. It is repetitive, and much harder on your back than you expect.

You carry them. Crates go into a trailer, and the trailer goes to the marani.

You crush them. In a working family cellar, this still happens in a satsnakheli — a hollowed-out log, usually a single trunk, sometimes generations old. You take your shoes off, get in, and tread. The juice runs down the log and into a qvevri, the large clay vessel buried up to its neck in the floor.

Then it goes underground. For the Kakhetian method, the skins, stems, and all go in. The qvevri is sealed with a stone lid and wet clay, then left for months. That is how amber wine is made, and Georgia has been doing it for roughly eight thousand years.

And then the supra

Physical work stops in the early afternoon. Then you sit down to eat, which is the actual point of the day.

A Georgian supra is directed by a tamada, or toastmaster, and follows a strict order. Toasts are dedicated to peace, the dead, parents, children, and the guests. Each one is a short speech, not a shout of “cheers”. You drink when a toast is made and wait in between. This sounds restrictive, but it is the only mechanism keeping anyone upright.

You will be toasted as a guest. You will likely be asked to make a toast yourself. Keep it honest and short. Nobody is grading you.

Food will continue to arrive long after you are full. This is intentional. A table where you can see the cloth is considered a failure of hospitality.

What to bring

• Closed shoes and clothes you do not mind ruining
• A hat — September in Kakheti is still hot
• Sun cream
• Something warm for the evening; the temperature drops sharply once the sun is off the valley
• Very little else

How to actually get into one

This is the detail most guides omit. Rtveli is a family obligation, not a public event. You cannot buy a ticket to a real one. The versions sold as day trips from Tbilisi are usually just demonstrations attached to a heavy lunch.

The only way in is to know somebody — usually a local driver who works the valley, or a friend who lives here. That is how people end up spending the morning in a working vineyard and the afternoon at the table that follows.

That is the only trick to Kakheti. Everything functional here relies on somebody knowing somebody.