In this episode, we are talking about Ritveli, which is Georgia's wine harvest festival. It's more than just a festival, though. It's a gathering of family together to make the wine for the season, to celebrate and to eat a lot of food and enjoy. We're going to be talking about the traditions, the history and also options for actually going out and experiencing the Riot Valley for yourself with a Georgian family.

Gama Jobba. This is the Tivolisi Podcast, covering life, travel and more in the country of Georgia, brought to you by foodfuntravel.com, expathub.ge and eatthestours.com all right. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Tbilisi Podcast, a show about life and travel in Tbilisi in Georgia. We have a very special episode coming to you this time around because it's harvest season.

Wine harvest season. Even better than just harvest season.

Yes. It is all about those luscious grapes that have been getting plump all summer. I've been watching them grow and I've been like, I'm waiting for you, my little ones.

The sugar content is just getting right. Turn it into lovely alcohol.

Yes. But rather than just going out and plucking some grapes and turning them into wine, Georgians like to do things with a little bit of flair. And they turned it into a festival, which is fantastic. And we're going to learn all about it in today's episode.

Yeah, that's right. It's Tom here from expathub.ge and eatthistores.com, we're talking about the Rivelli festival today, which is George's wine harvest festival. So shall we get into it, please? Let's get into the wine and the harvest.

Well, we are drinking wine while we do the episode.

That wine. There's really no other way to do a wine harvest episode.

That is true. Should we do it? Should we do a clink by a microphone so people can hear it? Here we go.

Cheers. Gamarjos. It's cheers in Georgian. I'm sure you know that already if you've been listening to a few of our episodes already. Alright, so, I mean, first up, what is Revelli? Because we're saying it's a Georgian wine harvest festival. What does that mean? Exactly?

Exactly. Yeah, tell me, tell me, please.

So I think the main thing about it is it's more than just the festival. I think this is the part that maybe if you just read online, oh, it's a wine harvest festival. Well, that's still great. But you'd assume that you know, a few hundred people come together in a field, there's lots of wine, maybe there's some grapes to mess around with. And it's a bit of fun.

Yep.

Which it is anyway. But it's not that. It's not that at all. This is a festival that runs essentially for months, but in increments. So, you know, one family is doing it in October, one family is doing it in mid September, someone else is doing it in early November.

Yeah. When we say wine festival, it doesn't just happen in one day.

Yeah. It is not a festival. It is not even a few festivals. It literally is every festival, thousands of festivals across Georgia, because every family is doing their own festival, pretty much. So, yeah, it's not a conventional festival in the sense of there's going to be bands and whatever, but there is probably going to be singing, there is probably going to be dancing, perhaps. Like, there's lots of different stuff going on because it comes down to the individual winemaker and their family and their friends and their personality as to what they're going to include. But of course, the main thing that they are going to include will be the actual harvest itself, which is picking the grapes. And this sort of name, Rvelli, specifically means to harvest grapes, and it derives from a different term, tveli, which is rutveli, with an S at the start instead. And that's the fruit harvest. So originally it would have just been, you know, this time of year is when fruit gets harvested, because that's when the fruit's ready to harvest. It's autumn, fall time. And then that got changed to be, well, let's make a festival and let's make a word that's specifically just about grapes, because the wine harvest is so important. Wine culture is so ingrained into Georgia as a country that need a word for it, and that's what happened.

Love it.

So, yeah, the exact time when that happened, exactly when that first happened, is not very clear because it's probably been going on for thousands of years and the sort of traditions that are involved in it have been developing over that period. So, sure, certain songs will have started to appear into popular culture and starting being sung at Rutvelli at a later time, not 8,000 years ago.

Do you think in current days they're singing Shake it Off?

Shake it Off?

Yeah, I think that would be a good harvest song. I think they don't really shake the grapes, they cut them off. But what's. What's.

You shake off your feet. If you've been stamping on grapes that's true. Shake it off.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very traditional. Very traditional.

T Swift Valley would be interesting.

Yeah.

Maybe. I don't know. Not 100% sure about that. Yeah, that's sort of like the main thing about it. It's just. It's ingrained in the culture. There's no specific, like, it's done one particular way or, you know, this family, it in 1873. It's just people have been making wine for 8,000 years.

Yeah.

This is what's going on. And, yeah, new traditions just. They just appeared around that over a very long period of time.

Yeah. I guess, you know, you get different influences, especially in Georgia. They're all about the different invasions have definitely brought in different influences as well, in good ways and bad ways. But some of those things would, of course, be incorporated into the festival. And they would have been like, oh, well, you know, like when they started doing khinkali, because, well, we haven't done a kikali episode, but there's few rumors about that. Some people think that they were introduced by the Mongolians. And so, therefore, you know, it's like, not all these things would have necessarily been on the table since the beginning of Georgian wine harvesting time.

No, they wouldn't have had khinkali on the table 8,000 years ago. Yeah, that's basically impossible. But who knows?

Yeah. So different traditions that have sort of become more popular throughout time have been incorporated into the festival, therefore. And as you said before, depending on the family that you have it with, they have their different specialties and friends and whatnot. So that's going to be incorporated into their particular wine festival, where other families don't necessarily have those talents and they do something different.

Yeah, exactly. Every breed valley that I've been to, and I've been to quite a lot now with the tour company, of course, there's always quirks and different things, different types of dishes that the family particularly likes. Different sort of celebratory things that they'll do. Yeah. So one of our winemakers is a dancer. We've talked about him before on other episodes, and he had his dance group that he teaches come and dance for us at Revelli.

In the middle of the field.

In the middle of the fields, among the vines. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. Other people that we have, we've had family ritvelli with their family sing. So they are going to sing a whole load of songs, and it's going to be really fun and very hard to join in unless you speak Georgian. But it's very fun. To watch. So, in general, I mean, this episode is not supposed to be about trying to do a deep dive in figuring out if there is any history around this, any sort of dates and exact details that we could pick out. This episode is more to talk about what it is like to experience it, to describe the sort of things that happen. So the main bulk of this, I want to talk about the actual things that happen at Urutvelli so you can get sort of a sense of what it's like to be at one. Before we do that, though, just very quickly, when does it happen? As we said, it happens everywhere across the country, in all different places, depending on one. Each family or each vineyard is actually harvesting their grapes. But just in general, actual dates we're looking at. So late August is about the earliest that it can happen. So some people start harvesting very early, depending on the season, depending on the.

Sort of wine they're planning to make as well.

It depends on where your field is located, how much sun your field gets. Is it north facing, south facing? Is it in a hotter part of the country? Is it.

How much rain did they get that year?

Yeah, how much rain. How many sunny days in general did they get, what the altitude is. There's so. So, so many different things. So it all comes down to the winemaker's preference as to when he thinks his grapes are ready, which, of course, is down to what, the amount of sugar content. So they can actually measure this. One of the ways that they measure it is they walk up to the vine and they pick off a grape and they eat it.

Very scientific way.

I've seen them do that. And he just walks up and go, yep, yep, yep. That's why we're good to go. We're harvesting this week, we're harvesting tomorrow. Yeah, seen that happen. But a lot of winemakers who are a little bit more strict about it are actually testing the grapes so they know exactly what the sugar content is.

I mean, we've been to little wineries that. Well, not little wineries, but some of the bigger wineries that have their laboratories there that they're doing all their tests on the wine. It's interesting to see a wine laboratory.

Yeah, I love it.

But, yeah, that's where they test it.

And they're like, sounds like a good bar. I'd go there.

Wine laboratory.

Yeah.

Hard to say if you're drunk, though.

Yeah. That's why there's one in Georgia called Wine Lab, because they were just like, no one's gonna be able to say wine laboratory. Laboratory.

I like saying laboratory. It's fun. Yeah.

So late August, A few people harvest mid August, but, yeah, it's not a big thing yet all the way through to November. So in some of the sort of western mountains and sort of higher regions and cooler regions, it takes a long time for the grapes to mature.

Peak time in the main wine regions, would you say is September, like mid.

September, sort of mid, late, ish. September through to early mid October is about the peak time. And I've got the rough dates here for everywhere. Karketti is the most famous wine region in Georgia. You'll hear us talk about Karketti a lot. Tel Avi and Signagi are the two main towns there that people visit early September at the very earliest. Like, not that many people are harvesting early September, so sort of maybe early mid September at the earliest through to the end of September. And the very start of October is the peak times. Let's just say that in pretty much any wine region anywhere, they could be harvesting as early as mid or early August through till mid November. It just depends on the season.

Yeah.

And everything else that we just talked about. So, yeah, in general, if you definitely want to do some sort of harvest experience in Karketti, then you want to be here in late September, because there is going to be something happening in late September.

Yeah. You're pretty guaranteed to hit something going on in. If you're here late September.

Almost 100%, yeah. Whereas, yeah, either side of that. Who knows? Almost always we have tours going out on either side of that, quite significantly on either side of that. But that's the time where it's just everything's going on. Normally, if you want to go to Kartley region around Tbilisi, like north and south of Tbilisi, these are places like Gory, where Stalin was born, Bolnesi, these areas, it's a little bit later, normally late September through to mid October rather than mid September. If you're going over to Emoretti in West Georgia, that's also sort of that sort of time. It's just a little bit later. So late September to mid October. And then if you're going out to the mountains, Racha is a good place to go. The Racha region north of Emirati, this sort of starts from early mid October and often goes into November. Last year, most of the winemakers that I'm connected with in Racha were saying they'd finished harvesting before November. But some seasons it does stretch into November as well. But if you go mid October to Ratcher, then you probably Got a strong chance that you're going to get to do something. So, yeah, that's the general dates. As I said, I'm going to talk through the exact steps of everything that you'll do at Revalli. That makes it super fun. But one more thing. Before we do that, I really need to define what it is. I mean, we've said it's this family event, but that maybe I feel like people who haven't done it or people who haven't really been involved in the wine industry might not quite get the difference between what this family artisan winemaker event is and what sort of just a regular wine harvest is and what regular harvest tours that most tour companies sell are.

Yeah, let's break it down into what you would do in a day if you were going on a authentic valley harvest with a family. They're like, we're harvesting this weekend. Come out, let's get it done.

That's exactly what I'm going to do. So let's look at what it isn't very quickly first so that you know the difference. What I call these on our website is simulations. Harvest simulations. That is not what we're talking about here. For real, RIP Valley harvest simulation would be where you go to a winery and there's maybe the winemakers there. I mean, with our simulation tours, there is a winemaker normally there, or maybe there's some members of staff and they take you through to some grapes near to their. Near to their marani, near to their wine cellar, and you go pick a few grapes and then you come back and you stomp on them. And that's it. That's like just your. Your fun afternoon out for a couple of hours.

It's not act work, you know, it's a fun experience.

It's a fun experience.

Why? The simulations are also a good option. If you're not up for some work, then a simulation is a good thing. You go, you go cut a couple of grapes, you have a bit of fun. You know, you do your selfies in the field and then you come back in and you do the super. And it's. It's perfectly fine to do that. If you do do an authentic experience, you are going to have to actually work.

Yeah, we don't make people work too hard, but you do have to work a bit. Yeah, but with the simulations, yeah, as you said, it's super easy. You just go out and you do it for like 20 minutes. You go out to some nice shady vines close to the winery and then you come back and you probably get to stomp your feet on them or at least some sort of processing of grapes. And then, yeah, maybe you get to drink the grape juice or something like that. But they're not planning to make wine out of it. That's the point.

No, no, it's usually like a section that's been put aside specifically for tourism purposes. And again, I don't know, will they turn it into Cha Cha or will they.

No, it might get turned into Churchilla. So they might boil the juice because then it doesn't matter if it's got your dirty feet all over it. We'll talk about the. The feet pressing later on when we get to that. But, yeah, so that's sort of how a simulation works. As you'd expect, it is. It's fake.

Yeah.

However, what we do have with our tours is we have just a few vendors who are the actual winemakers themselves that do simulations that are. They're pretty fun. They're. They're more authentic because it's actually at a home, family winery, and you're actually getting to do something with the winemaker rather than at the larger wineries where it's obviously very easy because you can literally just turn up and go, hi, I've got some money. Can I. Can I press some grapes? And I go, yeah, sure. My. My are sort of. Yeah, our staff member will just walk out the back with you and you can press some grapes for a bit. Yeah. And honestly, I've done that as well. And it's fun.

Oh, it's still fun. When did we do that?

Like, 2,016 the first time we got here.

It was super fun.

We got out the company.

I still use the photo now because we did all of our little, you know, posing photos with the grapes and the stomping. I use those photos all the time. They look great.

Yeah. If you are an Instagrammer who just wants to get cool photos and spend a half hour out in the fields and not get too sweaty, then simulation might actually be better for you. You might actually enjoy it. And of course, the main bonus of simulations is that you can book them a month, two months in advance. And, yeah, even if it rains, they'll still let you go out because they're not actually using the grapes to make wine. So they don't care if it's raining. They can't harvest because the grapes are wet and you're diluting the wine. And there's other problems as well. So they don't harvest if it's actually raining. So you. Yeah, you just can't do it. We have to cancel tours last minute if it's raining, which is, you know, it's fine with us. We want to have a real experience, and that's what the real experience is. Commercial, for example, though, is another good point. Commercial operations, of course, there are lots of grape pickers. There are people harvesting for the very large wine factories. And that's not something that we get involved in. But you can. You can, in theory, turn up and see what's going on. At the very least, you can. You can pop along to a very large winery and maybe they'll let you pop in and have a look.

Yeah.

So that sort of thing. But that's very much like the commercial operation is working in full force at an industrial scale. And, yeah, you're not really part of the harvest as such. I mean, they might let you pick some grapes, but that's a very different experience from actually hanging out with a family. Once again, you're going to be meeting some staff members and maybe they'll show you what's going on. Larger events are things that are set up specifically maybe for groups of foreigners, sometimes a mix of foreigners and locals, to go out and do a harvest. Most of these feel a little bit inauthentic for me. I mean, they're still like, once again, all of this stuff's really fun.

Yeah.

Like, it's just a matter of what level of authenticity you want. Do you want to get your hands dirty or do you want to go on just a fun trip where there's grapes? And for a lot of people, going on just a fun trip is totally all they want. And I. Yeah, do it, do it. It's great. It's great as well. So, yeah, larger events where maybe a winery will say, you know, they'll put out a public ad going, we're going to harvest some stuff on this day. We're going to get a busload of 30 or 40 people to come out to help us.

Yeah.

So, I mean, the thing with those is they are. They're big when they do those. So you've got 30 or 40 tourists, effectively. I mean, some of those tourists might be Georgian tourists, but they're, you know, people from Tbilisi who are just going out for a fun day out in the country. The 30 or 40 of you will help pick some grapes. And sure, they're probably gonna make some wine out of it because you're not gonna pick that many grapes and then throw them out.

Yeah.

So, yeah, with those sorts of things, those Sorts of events can be good as well, but it sort of feels like you're artificially being placed in a situation where, you know. Yeah, come out and do this as.

A. I mean, I don't. We're a bit snobbish.

I feel like it's still really fun.

It's still really fun. But. Yeah, I don't know, we sort of just feel, if anything that you get on a bus, a big bus with like 40 other people is automatically loses its authenticity.

The other thing that I find with these is there, I mean, they're set up for mass tourism when people do this. Well, not all of them, of course. There are some independent winemakers who organize their own stuff. Not loads that I know, but a few. But these are set up so that, you know, you will get your basic. You'll get your khachapuri, your salads, your mitzvah, which is pork barbecue. It's set up to be cheap.

Yeah.

So also, this is another thing. If you don't have much budget to.

Spend, you can still have the experience. Go out and do this.

Yeah, this is the backpacker option. It's. Yeah, you're going to end up spending sort of like 100 Lari or 120 Larry to go out for the day for a bus ticket on a big bus, some basic food, maybe some kakali, and you'll have a perfectly lovely. You'll meet some new people and it'll be fun. Yeah. So, yeah, no, absolutely nothing wrong with any of these experiences. You just need to be aware of what you're getting, what you're expecting and how it's going to be.

I guess also just differentiating the price points of things as well. Like, you know, you can. You have people that will be downtown offering you a pamphlet to go on a tour for. Like you said, like 100 gel. If. Or even. No, I don't think it's less these days.

Not with the transport.

Used to be. Used to be, but not anymore.

It's a bus ticket.

But yeah, but you can see like the difference. We're exper. We're explaining it to you now so you can see what the difference is and the levels of the. Of the festival. So you can choose what price point is, is what you want and why you understand why certain things cost more and other ones are cheaper.

Yeah. So exactly. And then the real family, where it's just a small group, where you actually go and help the family make their wine, it's a little bit different. And that's why it's the thing that I love the most, I think you make personal connections with the local winemakers and local families when you do these, rather than just making connections with other tourists. I mean, you make connections with other travelers as well, because you're on a tour with a small group. But it's not just about being on a big bus of people and making friends and doing some fun bits. It's actually about becoming a part of that season. The wine that you made is your wine. This is one of the things I love about it. I mean, one of the rip valleys we did last year, all of the guests that were on that small group tour, they signed this sort of plaque that the winemaker put up next to the quivery. That was the quivery that we.

Oh, yeah, that was super special. We have a picture of that. I'll post it on Instagram. Go have a look. And you can see the plaque that everyone signed. And that's what sealed the fairy, wasn't it? It went over the top.

Yeah, yeah. So that sort of thing is really special, I think, because you're actually meeting the winemaker, you're going out to the vineyard with the winemaker, you're actually getting personal time to talk to them, you're going to have dinner with them. And I'll talk through all the exact details now. But, yeah, that sort of thing, for me, that that's the most authentic possible way you can do this. It doesn't feel artificial, because it's not artificial. They are actually out there. All of the ones, this stuff we did last season and all the stuff we will do this season for these types of tours, you're actually meeting members of their family as well. They're coming, they're helping move the grapes. We're helping them load the grapes into the truck, getting them back to the winery, helping them process the grapes, getting them in the quivery, like all of this stuff. Yeah. So, yeah, let's talk through that. Let's talk through exactly what to expect. So, yeah, you have to start relatively early because I said these grapes are actually going to be used to make wine. So if it's too hot and it's too late in the day and it gets really hot, they can't process the grapes properly. It affects the quality of the wine. So they start picking really early. They can start picking pretty much from sunrise if they want to. They don't always do that, but they quite often do.

Oh, it's still Georgia, isn't it?

Yeah.

No, it's not just getting up early.

Too early. We're not gonna make you get up at sunrise, typically, unless you really want to, you can go off and do that. But we're not gonna make the whole group turn up at sunrise for this. That's not what we do. We get people to turn up at sort of like, yeah, 10pm, 10am, 10pm Brilliant. Yeah. Sort of like, yeah, 9:30, 10am, 10:30, something like that. Because they'll finish picking around midday or just after midday. Depends on the season. Like later in the season. If you're going October, if you want to come do tours in October, then it's a little bit easier because you can start a bit later because the temperatures aren't as high and that works pretty well. And then you finish picking like 1:00 rather than 11:30, 12:00. So, yeah, come along, do a couple of hours of picking. You'll meet some of the family members who are already out in the fields already picking, and you'll be able to get in there and help them speed up the process so they can pick as many grapes as possible. So they can fill that query then. Yeah, we're actually helping them load the van. So, yeah, you are going to have to do a bit of work. So we're saying this is what the family's doing. You're not just going to sit around drinking cha cha, watching everybody else.

I mean, you don't turn up in your Insta dress.

No, I mean, you sort of can, like, that's fine as well. It's not dirty work.

It's not dirty work, no, but it's still work. You still lifting crates and can be a bit warm.

Like when you're out in the fields and there's breeze in the mountain valleys and stuff, it doesn't get too crazy. Depends on the season, obviously. Yeah, we're going to help them transport and load everything up, but we do want to have a lot of fun. And all of the guys who work at these places as well, and the family who take part in the festival, they want to have some fun as well. So it's actually very, very normal to crack out some drinks and snacks once you've started loading the van up or just like, just before, or just after you finish loading the van. Maybe we get a barbecue going in the fields right next to the vines, because it's pretty quick. They can. They can do a barbecue in Georgia in no time.

They're super fast.

Yeah, they're just like, should we have a barbecue? And then 15 minutes later, the pork's already on the barbecue and it's pretty much cooked.

Love it.

Yeah. I don't know how they do it. Amazing. And normally someone's brought some wine, one of the guys will have brought some wine or we'll organize some wine. But yeah, normally the winemakers bring along with them anyway. So yeah, you're actually out there in the vines, maybe with mountain views as well. Just having some snacks and some drinks, a little picnic.

It's beautiful. As I said before, I'm going to share all these pictures on Instagram and you can just follow the story while looking at the pictures. Like switch over right now, go have a look at our Instagram account. It's Tbilisi podcast, super easy. And you can see everything that we're talking about right now and just, you know, envision yourself as one of the people there experiencing that, having barbecue beside, you know, the vines with the mountains in the background with some local dancers coming along and the kids dancing in the field with you and ah, just, just crazy. Awesome.

Yeah. Every single event though is slightly different. So we don't want every event to be the same. So all of our events, all seven of our main family rep valleys this year, there's a little description on our website if you go to eatthisthistores.com harvest, there's a little description about each one that has like a couple of USPs about what it is that that specific RIP Belli is going to have. We've got one that's going to be with a female winemaker, We've got one that's with our dance friend, one with the singing family and a few other things.

And USP is unique selling point in case anyone doesn't know.

Sorry, business chats. Usp unique selling point. Yeah, every tour is different. Yeah, every tour is different. So yeah, whichever one you go on, you will not be doing the same tour that the other groups are doing. Pretty much after that they get the. They actually transport everything back to the Marani, the wine cellar. We will jump in the minivan with our guide and we'll head back to the Marani and we'll help them unload and we'll help them process the grapes. Now this is a really big thing and this is one of the ones that maybe some people are like, oh, that's frustrating. With the real Rutvelli. They are actually trying to make the best possible wine that they can. Especially because we're going to artisan winemakers. They really are trying to make high quality wine.

This is the wine they're going to be selling next year.

Yeah, you're actually helping them make this. And this means that they will be using modern equipment to process the grapes in almost all occasions. Because processing the grapes by stomping them with your bare feet, it's not particularly hygienic. And it doesn't always lead to the best wine.

It's actually. Well, haven't they said just like. Because they're. You like if you're stamping on them, you're smooshing the grapes, which is not good for them. You actually need to just press the grapes and that's what gets the best flavor out of them. But when you smush them into obliteration, because you're gonna have some stampy fun, it's just not great for it. Let's be honest, it's.

Yeah, it varies on how you prefer to make wine. I wouldn't say there's a hard and fast rule about that. The main reasons that it's a problem is, yeah, bacteria from your feet is not really a good addition to the wine. Doesn't necessarily cause a problem. People have done it for thousands of years. But also wine has gone bad for thousands of years because of bacteria in the. In the wine. So the other reason is it is massively labor intensive and massively time consuming to process a ton of grapes with a little home size machine. So I'm not talking like a professional massive winery machine. These small artisan winemakers pretty much rent for a few days the small processing machines. You can process a ton of grapes in a couple of hours. Whereas if you're doing that by foot, we literally would be talking about spending the whole day doing that ton of grapes. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of work. I mean, I've done it a whole bunch of times because it is something you can go and do, and I like to go and do it. It's fun to go and press with your feet. But for serious winemakers who want to get it done at the highest standard and get it done with consistency, they are using modern equipment, modern presses. Yeah. And they remove all the stalks instantly. They just spit out the side. All the stalks are gone. Whereas in the sassanekelli, which is the. The big wooden trunk, the stamping vessel that you put all the grapes in traditionally and stomp with your feet with that, getting all the bits of stalks out and stems is a little bit more time consuming. And for a lot of winemakers, if they're doing it that way, they just put the stems straight in the wine, which lends to some Bitterness in wines which some people like. I don't. Not a big fan.

I'm not a big fan.

But some people like it, some people still choose to do it, some people do it even with modern machinery. They're still stems in. So yeah, it depends on the winemaker. Most of the winemakers we have because they're at the higher level, they do it with modern machinery. So yeah, could be a little bit disappointing just to be aware of that. But you still get to help actually process the grapes and all of that juice that you're, you're loading into the machine is going into the quivery, going to make the wine after this. What we typically do is we hook you up with any part of the family that's making food for dinner. So you're going to maybe get to do a cooking class. Maybe we make some khinkali, maybe we make something else. But you'll get to see what's going on in terms of what they're making, what dishes they're making. You get to sort of get a bit more insight into the sort of food that people are eating at the Supra. Yeah. So the Supra which we will be talking about in future episodes. So do listen out for that because the Supra is the feast and it's a pretty amazing style of feast. Really, really different from types of feast you might have in other countries. And yeah, I think you need to listen to those episodes. We're not going to talk about it in full here.

Yep, full history of the Supra coming up very soon.

And then perhaps at some point, maybe a little bit later on or depends when the family is ready. We might make some Tchurchkelle. Doesn't happen every time. It depends how busy they are. If they have time to boil some of the leftover juice or maybe like some rare occasions, we might just go press some grapes with our feet and then just make that into Tchkela.

Can you do a very quick summary of what Churchkela is for people listening?

Essentially they boil down the grape juice into this sort of sweet, sweet liquid and they mix it with flour and it turns into this sort of thick paste. And then they dip walnuts on a string in this to make this sort of long sausage shaped walnut sweet.

If you've been down in the markets, you would have noticed it. It's everywhere.

If you visit Georgia, you'll see these hanging long sort of sausage shaped dessert things, sweet things. And this is Churchkella. And so yeah, if they've got time I said, that's a bit more of a. They don't do this straight away necessarily. So the family might not have time to make it. It depends on how bus. How busy the harvest's been, how many grapes they managed to harvest that day. But that can be a fun thing and a fun extra bonus thing to do rather than a guaranteed thing. And then after that, as soon as all the grapes have been processed and you don't have to do this, you don't have to process grapes for an hour or two hours. What we'll do is we'll help them. No.

So you help them a bit, then we'll do it. Then you go and eat and drink.

Yeah, well, at least we go and do the cooking classes and we taste some wine and that sort of thing and get some snacks. And then once they finish processing the wine, then the winemaker can come in and host us and we can have a supra. So there will be toasts, there will be frivolity, there will be lots more wine. You'll be drinking last season's wines, so you can see what your wine will likely taste like next year.

There might even be Cha Cha.

Cha Cha is available, but I don't actively encourage it unless people really want it, because cha Cha is pretty strong spirit, made from leftover grape.

Must stick to the wine.

Yeah, it's a Georgian grapper. For those who haven't listened to previous episodes.

I'm not saying to not try cha Cha, you should try cha Cha. But I think if you're out in a super event, it's probably best to stick to the wine and then have cha Cha on another occasion. You don't need to have it when you're having a big, you know, festival super party times.

No, but people do. So, you know, up to you. We're not gonna stop you doing it. So, yeah, that's really. It. It's. It's just. I said, the thing about it is maybe it's not that complicated. Maybe it's not like. I mean, yeah, it's a few steps. It's picking grapes, it's pressing grapes, it's eating, it's drinking. These are all good things. These are all just good things. It doesn't need to be that complicated. What really makes it important and what really makes it amazing to do the family Rip Valley is that you're genuinely hanging out with the family. You're genuinely helping them make their actual wines for the season and you really feel a part of it. I think that's. That's really what it is. And with a small group tour as well, it makes a big difference if you're in a small group as opposed to a large group. That's why I prefer this sort of experience personally. But, yeah, we have events running this year. We have an event on the 10th of September, 9th and 10th of September. There's some spaces left on that, which is a larger event, which is just more of a fun day out. Well, fun two days out in wine country.

Oh, we're both gonna be there.

We're both gonna be there. We're gonna have Georgian Polyphonic singing and dancing at that event, as I said, because it's more of an event than just a spontaneous family thing. So, yeah, this is gonna be fun. There'll be other events running through the season as well. You can look out for them. People will probably promote them on Facebook somewhere. And yeah, we also do our simulation tours, which are also, yeah, really fun. We meet up with the actual winemaker and you get to go out to one of his small fields near his cellar and pick some grapes and. And still. Yeah, still have a very authentic homely experience, but just a simulation version of it rather than the full day, big day of just harvesting and eating.

Yeah. Now, of course, we have just recorded this entire podcast, but Tom has painstakingly written an entire article explaining all of this out as well. So if you would like to read all of the information. Tom, where can people go to get that article?

Yeah, go to eatthisthistours.com harvest, which is like our hub page for everything Harvest. And the article that's actually like a full rundown and pictures of everything is just sort of just a slightly far down the page. Yeah. A couple of paragraphs down the page is the link to the article and then a link to all the different types of events and tours and everything we've got going on this year.

Yep. So go there, Booker, to found it. Find out more information. Email us if you want any other information. But I'm pretty certain everything you need is actually on that page.

But everything or at least connected to with links.

Yeah, but of course, please feel free to email us info.

Eat this, tourist.com or.

Yeah, just read all the information we have on the blog there. As I mentioned before, I will be posting a lot of the photos and everything on our Instagram account and in turn our Facebook account. So go to Tbilisi podcast and follow us there. That would be wonderful. If you're not following us here right now on this podcast, hit subscribe on whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on and make sure you don't miss out on any future episodes that we have. We have so many topics to cover. And also, as we said, we've got that Supra episode coming up. It's a two parter and who doesn't want to hear about food? Yum. Tasty food.

You want to hear about food all the time.

All the time. So hit that subscribe button and make sure that you get notifications when that podcast hits the airwaves.

So finally, fun fact.

Yeah. Oh, I love fun facts.

Yeah. So how many grapes do you think are harvested in Georgia every year?

Oh, all of Georgia. Oh, my God.

Well, actually it was a little hard to find exact statistics on all of Georgia. And one of the problems that I have is that a lot of very small winemakers, maybe they harvest one or two tons to themselves, but they're not reporting that to national statistics necessarily.

Yeah, of course.

So this is sort of larger commercial production, I believe. It's actually a little hard to find the exact figures.

Would it be crazy to say like 200,000 tonnes?

It would not be crazy to say that in the Karkety region alone, which is the only stats I could find easily.

Yeah.

In English, at least 300,000 tons of grapes.

I'm under.

And that's 300,000 just Karketti region. That doesn't include all the other wine regions. So I mean, we're looking at at least probably about double that for the whole country.

So 600,000 tons of grapes for the entire country.

Yeah. Now, 300,000 tons of grapes. How many bottles is that math?

Do you know how much wine I've had recording this episode? Yeah, I don't know, a lot.

So 300,000 tons is 21.6 million bottles in Karketti alone. So if we double that, 42.6 million bottles per year from a country that has a population of three and a half million.

Yep.

So we're talking about.

They make some serious wine.

Yeah, we're talking about 12 bottles of wine per person. But as I said, so many people are making wine at home.

That's not on the statistics bureau, really?

This is wine that's for a sale. This is wine that's for mass production. This is wine that's for.

They've got like a business registration.

Yeah. So so much wine is being. And as we know, Georgians drink like liters of wine per person at a Supra, so it's pretty different amount of wine that's actually being made compared to these numbers, but these are like the official sort of commercial statistics, as far as I can tell.

That's incredible. Go, Georgia, go.

It's still a lot of bottles.

Georgia go.

Yeah, but then, yeah, 11 bottles per person, but that also includes children and babies and. Yeah. So you can't do an exact comparison to the population of the country.

No.

12 bottles per person would not be a lot of bottles, given the quantity of alcohol that's drunk here by Georgians. I think. So. Yeah. Anyway, still, it was quite a lot, I thought.

Absolutely.

All right, so, yeah, that's it for this episode. Head to eattistours.com harvest if you want some more details about what we do and if you want to see all of those photos and information about the different sorts of tours that you can take when you're here, as not just our tours, but if you want to go and do one of those large events, they're a bit cheaper than what we do, Then you can also jump on one of those.

Just go out and do something because it's a wonderful time to be in Georgia and you don't want to miss it.

Just go. Enjoy wine country. Really? I mean, yeah, if you're coming to Georgia, don't miss out on wine country. It is the best. It's the best. I'm out there all the time. I love it.

All right, thank you once again for listening to the Tuvalisi podcast.

Yep. We'll be back with more episodes, so we will see you next time, but once again, we won't because we can't see you. Yeah, send us a video of you listening to our podcast. That would be really odd.

That's gonna get so creepy. Please don't.

Don't do it. Don't send us any videos of you listening to our podcast. Unless they're really funny, then that's fine. But send them publicly. I don't want you to send them privately to my phone or something.

Yeah, tag us.

This is getting really weird.

Tag us in a public thing. I don't want a private DM public.

Post of you listening to our podcast. Tag us somewhere and. Yeah, why not? Why not?

Why not? All right on that. Ciao. Thanks for listening to the Tbilisi Podcast. Connect with us@tbilisipodcast.com where you can find all relevant social media links, join our email newsletter and discover more about travel tours and expat services in Georgia. This show is brought to you by foodfuntravel.com, expathub.ge and ethistours.com.