Telavi

Telavi appears in the records from the tenth century, when an Arab geographer listed it among the towns of the Caucasus, and from then until the twelfth century it was the capital of the kingdom of Kakheti. After the collapse of united Georgia the Kakhetian capital was at Gremi, sacked by Shah Abbas's army in 1615, and then returned to Telavi, which became the royal seat in the seventeenth century. The fortified residence of Batonis Tsikhe in the centre of town dates from that period.

The town's best-known figure is Erekle II, born here in 1720, who ruled Kakheti and then the united kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti for most of the eighteenth century. He rebuilt the palace, fortified towns across the region, including Sighnaghi, and in 1783 signed the Treaty of Georgievsk placing his kingdom under Russian protection — protection that did not arrive when a Persian army marched on Tbilisi in 1795. He died in Telavi in 1798, and his equestrian statue stands beside the fortress.

Under Russian rule the town became a district centre and a market for the wine and grain of the Alazani valley, with Armenian and Jewish trading families alongside Georgians. The Soviet period brought wine factories, workshops and blocks of flats on the edges. Independence and the collapse of the state wine monopoly hit the region hard in the 1990s, and the Russian embargo on Georgian wine from 2006 forced producers to seek new markets. Since then family wineries, restored estates and visitors have gradually rebuilt the town's fortunes.

Telavi is the centre of a region whose identity is built around wine. Households keep a marani, a cellar with qvevri buried to the neck, in which grapes ferment on their skins in a method inscribed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage. The rtveli harvest in September and October organises the year, and the churches, cellars and vineyards around the town are the setting for most of its public life.

The supra is taken seriously here. A tamada leads the toasts in order — peace, the homeland, the dead, family, guests — and each is answered by the table, often with polyphonic singing, another UNESCO-listed Georgian tradition. Kakhetians have a reputation across the country for open-handedness and for saying what they think, and a visitor who accepts an invitation to a cellar should expect to stay for a meal.

Religious life is strong, centred on Alaverdi Monastery north of the town, whose September feast of Alaverdoba is an old harvest gathering that draws people from across the region, and on the monasteries of Ikalto and Shuamta in the hills. Ikalto's medieval academy, linked by tradition to the poet Shota Rustaveli, gives the district a place in Georgian literary memory. More recently the Tsinandali estate outside town has added an international classical music festival to the autumn calendar, and craft traditions — the potting of qvevri, felt and carpet weaving — continue in the villages.

About 17,000 people live in Telavi, making it the largest town in Kakheti and the administrative centre of the municipality, with a hospital, courts, a state university and the schools and offices that the valley's villages depend on. The population has fallen since Soviet times, and many households have relatives working in Tbilisi or abroad.

The regional economy is agricultural above all. Grapes dominate, with wineries ranging from cellars selling a few hundred bottles to substantial commercial producers, and the town also handles grain, fruit, walnuts, sunflowers and livestock from the plain. Tourism has grown steadily, bringing guesthouses, restaurants and drivers, although most visitors treat Telavi as a base rather than a destination and Sighnaghi takes a larger share of them.

The day begins early: the market is busiest soon after dawn, offices and shops open mid-morning, and the heat of a summer afternoon empties the streets until evening, when families walk in Nadikvari Park and along the avenue. Weekends and harvest weeks pull people out to village houses and cellars. Low wages, seasonal work, the state of rural roads and the price that wineries pay for grapes are the recurring subjects of conversation.

Telavi eats the cooking of Kakheti, meatier and less herb-heavy than that of western Georgia. Mtsvadi — pork or lamb skewered and grilled over dried vine cuttings — is the centrepiece of a feast, served with raw onion and pomegranate seeds. Chakapuli, lamb or veal stewed with tarragon, spring onions and sour green plums, belongs to spring; chanakhi, lamb baked in a clay pot with aubergine and tomato, to colder months; and khinkali, pleated dumplings of spiced meat and broth, are eaten all year in plain dining rooms around the centre.

The table opens with vegetable and walnut dishes: pkhali of spinach, beetroot or cabbage ground with walnuts, garlic and coriander; badrijani nigvzit, fried aubergine rolled around walnut paste; lobio, beans stewed with herbs and eaten with cornbread; and sheep's or cow's cheese from the valley. Shotis puri, the canoe-shaped loaf slapped onto the wall of a clay tone oven, is bought hot from bakeries through the day, and in autumn churchkhela — walnuts threaded on string and dipped in thickened grape juice — hangs in every market stall.

Wine is the region's reason for being known abroad. Saperavi, a dark-fleshed red grape, and the white Rkatsiteli are the mainstays, and the appellations of the surrounding villages — Tsinandali, Mukuzani, Napareuli, Vazisubani and the semi-sweet red Kindzmarauli from Kvareli — come from vineyards within a short drive. Amber wine, white grapes fermented on their skins in qvevri, is the traditional Kakhetian style, and chacha, a spirit distilled from the pressings, closes a meal.