Kakheti Wine Tours from Tbilisi: Prices Compared

A guided Kakheti wine tour from Tbilisi runs anywhere from around 430 GEL a person - about $156 at the operator’s own quoted exchange rate - for a boutique small-group day, to $170-230 a head for a private car and driver, cheaper the bigger your group. For a couple the small-group day works out about a fifth cheaper per person; by four people the private car costs the same or slightly less each, which is why group size decides this more than anything else - the real gap is what you’re paying for: a shared vehicle running a fixed script, or a driver, guide and itinerary built around just your group. Both operators below run this exact route out of Tbilisi, and which one’s worth booking comes down to your group size more than anything else.

Checked 08.08.2026. Routes, hours and per-person prices below come straight from each operator’s own site as of this date, with GEL converted to dollars at Eat This Tours’ own quoted rate. Operators adjust routes and prices with the season - confirm the current itinerary and price directly with them before you book.

Two formats, at a glance

What a day tour from Tbilisi actually covers

Book with Advantour, a regional operator running its own private tours rather than reselling someone else’s, and the day follows one fixed route: Tbilisi to Vardisubani for a qvevri workshop and a tasting at Kbilashvili Winery, into Telavi for a short town stop past the Erekle II monument, lunch and a tasting at Shumi Winery, then Alaverdi Cathedral before the drive back. Advantour’s own itinerary has the group leaving Tbilisi at 09:00; because it’s a private tour, their booking notes add that the start can move anywhere from 9am to 4pm to suit you, so it’s worth asking when you book if 09:00 doesn’t work. The whole loop runs 10-12 hours and covers roughly 100km each way over the Gombori Pass - about two hours of driving in decent weather, with the road climbing through forest before it drops into the vine-covered flat of the Alazani Valley.

The qvevri workshop at the start is more than a photo stop: it’s where a winemaker walks you through how the clay vessels are made and buried, before you taste something poured straight from one. That single stop does more to explain Kakheti’s wine than any label reading, which is why it’s the stop worth asking about when an itinerary lists a workshop rather than just a tasting. Pairing a small workshop stop with a larger estate like Shumi later in the day means you see two different scales of the same craft rather than sitting through the same tasting twice - worth asking about if a tour operator offers to swap either winery for another on request.

Everything on that list is built into the quoted price: transfers, an English-speaking guide, the qvevri workshop and tasting at Vardisubani, lunch and a tasting at Shumi, and half a litre of water a person. What isn’t included is anything you buy at the wineries themselves - bottles to take home cost extra everywhere.

Private tour or small group: the price gap is bigger than you think

Advantour prices its private tour per person, and the number changes sharply with group size: $390 travelling alone, $230 for two, $200 for three, $170 for four. A couple splitting a private car pays 40% less each than someone booking solo, and a group of four gets the same car, guide and itinerary for under half the per-person price of going it alone.

At the other end of the market sits Eat This Tours, a boutique operator running scheduled small-group days rather than private ones: its Vines & Villages route charges 430-495 GEL a person, cheaper as the group fills toward its cap of eight guests. At the site’s own quoted rate of around 2.75 GEL to the dollar, that’s roughly $156-180 a person - a fifth to a third less than Advantour’s $230 for a couple - but the day is built differently: eleven hours door to door (pickup at 10:45, back around 9:30-10pm), a wine-paired lunch at a winery in the Manavi microzone, Sighnaghi’s walls in the afternoon, a tasting at a second, artisan cellar, then an evening supra with a small family winemaker - three wineries in total, with at least ten wines poured across the day.

Below both of these sits a cheaper, more crowded tier: shared bus tours bundled with Kazbegi or Mtskheta rather than dedicated to wine, priced well under either named operator above. The trade-off is a bigger group, a fixed script and a lot less time at any one stop - worth knowing it exists, but check the actual checkout price rather than a crossed-out “sale” figure, since that part of the market moves by the hour and isn’t something we’re pricing here.

Why not just drive yourself

Kakheti is close enough to Tbilisi that plenty of visitors rent a car and go it alone - our Kakheti wine route lays out a two-day version, and how to rent a car in Georgia covers the paperwork. The catch is obvious once you say it out loud: somebody has to stay sober enough to drive the Gombori Pass back, and a self-drive day usually means fewer tastings, not more, because whoever’s behind the wheel can’t actually taste anything. A tour sidesteps that problem entirely, which is the main reason a group of four often books the paid car over the rental even though the total cost lands in a similar place.

There’s a middle option too: rent a car for the trip but hire a driver just for the wine day, or split the group so one person stays sober while the others taste. Neither is common, but both come up often enough with families that it’s worth asking a tour operator whether they’ll match a private car to a shorter, custom stop list instead of their standard route.

What’s actually in the glass

Both operators pour Kakheti’s two headline grapes at every stop - Saperavi, a dark, high-acid red, and Rkatsiteli, the white that becomes Georgia’s amber “orange” wine after weeks on its skins in a buried qvevri - plus whatever a winery is doing that season with the more local Mtsvane or Kisi. For the fuller picture of what to order and why it tastes the way it does, see our Kakheti wine primer.

When to go and how far ahead to book

Rtveli, the harvest season our Kakheti wine primer covers in depth, is the busiest stretch on the road too - book a seat or a private car at least a few days ahead if you’re travelling in September or October. Outside harvest, tours run year-round, and a private booking is generally easier to secure last-minute than a seat on someone else’s fixed schedule. Whichever season, a hat and comfortable shoes matter more than people expect: qvevri workshops and cellar tours mean standing on stone and gravel for a good part of the day.

The towns behind the tour stops

Telavi, capital of the wine region, and Sighnaghi, the hilltop town the small-group itinerary builds its afternoon around, both get their own guides if you want more than a drive-through: Telavi and Sighnaghi. Alaverdi Cathedral covers the monastery that closes out Advantour’s route, and Tbilisi is the pickup point for both operators, so where you’re staying in the capital rarely changes which one makes more sense.