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We've only just crossed the border into Georgia and already our new local guide, Sopho, is listing the country's superlatives. The tallest mountain in Europe; one of the world's first Christian countries; one of the first written alphabets; the oldest human fossils discovered outside Africa (1.8 million years old!).
Just a day earlier, our guide in Azerbaijan had joked that Georgians claim they're the best and first at everything. I'd thought it just neighbourly teasing at the time ... but Sopho is hardly drawing breath as she works through her list.
Georgia's wealth is why the legendary Jason came here to find the Golden Fleece; the fertile soils are why the country's name means "land of agriculture" in Ancient Greek; and with the second-highest number of grape varieties in the world, this is where wine was first made. Suddenly my ears prick up.
Is this why Georgia, at the intersection of eastern Europe and western Asia, is becoming so popular? Or is the answer hidden elsewhere in Sopho's list? I've joined a small group of Australians on a trip with Bunnik Tours to try to discover why this is becoming one of the world's newest tourism hotspots ... and a glass of wine seems like a good enough place to start.
Grape expectations
"In Georgia, we do not drink wine without doing a toast," says Georgi from Winery Khareba as he fills up our tasting glasses. More than just a refreshment, he explains wine is to be shared with others, accompanied by stories and the exchange of ideas. "If we see people drinking without a toast, we think they're alcoholic," he jokes.
Sopho has finished her list and we've arrived at the Winery Khareba's enormous cellar, where eight kilometres of tunnels in a hillside keep up to 35,000 bottles at a cool and constant temperature. Some are made in the modern European style, while some use the traditional Georgian method - the grapes' juice, skin and stalks all sealed in clay jars and buried for months to ferment.
"We started making wine 8000 years ago," Georgi explains. "But until the 19th century, we could not commercialise the winemaking because when we made it, we drank it. Ha!"
The person leading those European-style changes back then was Prince Alexander Chavchavadze. His centuries-old winery, where Georgian wine was first bottled, is now called Tsinandali Family Estate. Along with the romantic garden and a museum of aristocratic society, there's the huge historic cellar that includes a bottle gathering dust from 1841 (presumably undrinkable).
Thankfully it's the modern (more than drinkable) wines that we taste, including two of Georgia's famous varieties: zesty floral notes in the white Rkatsiteli, bold berry flavours in the red Saperavi. But it's not lost on me that every bottle we'll open on this trip (and that'll be a lot) comes with this origin story.
Capital venture
Wine seems to hang over us everywhere we go. "You will rarely see a building without grapes on the facade," says Sopho a couple of days later, gesturing up at the carvings on a building in Tbilisi's Mtatsminda neighbourhood. Case in point.
On this morning walk through Georgia's capital, Sopho is focusing on the district's art nouveau architecture, which became popular in the early 1900s. Tbilisi was still a part of the Russian Empire but the city's elite, like their wine, were inspired by the sophistication of Europe. They added sculptures to exteriors and painted murals in the foyers (which Sopho mysteriously seems to have the door codes for).
But this is just one blink of time and, for millennia, Georgia's capital has been caught at the crossroads of civilisations. The Old Town reveals cobblestone streets, domed brick bathhouses and an underground bazaar. Along Rustaveli Avenue loom large stately 19th-century edifices like the National Museum and Opera Theatre. And there are even hipster neighbourhoods with street art and nightclubs that have earned the city the description "the new Berlin".
"There's a building that's seen a lot," Sopho sighs as our walking tour finishes at the Georgian Parliament. The main entrance between monumental columns is now boarded up, the lower walls covered in graffiti. A permanent protest sits atop the stairs as a resistance to what's seen as the government's shift away from Europe and back towards Russia.
We explore these tides of history in the afternoon in an elegant apartment converted into an art museum. Bunnik Tours has arranged an exclusive conversation for our group with Alex Petriashvili, a politician who once served as the state minister for Georgia's European and Euro-Atlantic integration (and now a government critic), who talks us through the country's modern struggles and how they manifest in the city we are exploring.
"After Stalin's death, under Soviet repression machinery, Georgians never lost our identity," Alex declares. "Despite the difficulties with the government, hospitality is still our brand." And so, wine in hand, we toast.
Seeing red
It's been almost 35 years since independence from the USSR and I think most visitors focus less on that political history and more on the incredible natural beauty and cultural heritage. But it is hard to escape the story of one of the country's own: Joseph Stalin.
How did the son of an abusive alcoholic shoemaker from the small city of Gori go on to lead a global superpower? If you were hoping to find the answers at his hometown's Joseph Stalin Museum, prepare to look through rose (or red) coloured glasses. Opened in 1957, it presents his story from the Soviet perspective of the time. Sopho admits that even these days "a tiny little part of us is proud that one of the most influential figures of the 20th century was Georgian".
More unvarnished is the abandoned sanatorium we visit in Tskaltubo, once one of the largest Soviet spa towns. The most industrious workers from across the USSR would be rewarded with a trip here to enjoy hot springs, gardens and concerts. But now the majestic architecture that once exuded "care ... and power" has been reclaimed by nature - huge resort buildings with trees growing from rooms, vines wrapping around balustrades, mould peeling the paint away. Climbing through the silent halls is eerie yet strangely beautiful.
Perhaps the most striking Soviet-era monument appears on the drive up to the Caucasus mountains, along the steep and winding Georgian Military Highway. Protruding from a bluff, the enormous curved mosaic set on stone celebrates Georgian and Russian relations. It's a reminder that the border with Russia is just minutes from where we're heading ... and perhaps that story is still being written.
Higher calling
Legend says Prometheus was chained to the highest peak here in the Kazbegi region for stealing fire from the gods. Clearly he didn't use any of that fire to melt the snow still atop the mountains in summer. But lower down, among the rich green grass and explosions of colourful flowers, are popular hiking trails. The landscape here is striking (a rival to the Alps) and some of our group trek among it to a waterfall one afternoon. But the most popular route, up to the Gergeti Trinity Church, we do together in jeeps.
Relatively small and built in the 14th century from rough stones, this is not an exceptionally important church religiously. Yet it's iconic. Inside, wisps of smoke hang in the dark medieval atmosphere; outside in the dazzling sunshine, high icy peaks surround its hilltop position. On this divine ascent, you can see the church in the foreground with the prison of Prometheus behind, nature and heritage dramatically entwined.
We see this fusion again as we near the end of the trip, at the Vardzia cave monastery. More cave than monastery, hundreds of rooms have been carved into the side of a cliff, most in the 12th century, some small crevices for sleeping, some large caverns for gathering. We clamber up and down hand-cut stairs, along feet-polished ledges, and through head-threatening tunnels. In the centre is the revered Church of the Dormition, all hewn from rock, vivid murals painted on the walls.
Climbing down, Sopho has organised for our Bunnik group to visit some nuns nearby, where they introduce us to their monastic life. "We grow everything like vegetables and fruit, we have our own cows ... and we make wine." Of course, they do.
They also focus on different handicrafts and take us through peaceful rooms for calligraphy or knitting. One nun shows us the altar cloth she's embroidering with golden thread, vines crawling over the design. With slow and patient needlework, it will take her years to complete. "One grape needs one hour," she explains.
So many grapes, so much wine. Her artworks are like all our toasts in Georgia, leisurely but thoughtful. As Georgi the winery guide explained on our first day, they are for the exchange of ideas.
For centuries, people have brought their cultures here - sailing over water on an odyssey to find riches, walking to fertile soils to plant seeds for the future, driving over mountains to grow an empire. Their stories are still told today and, while some may be tall tales, many of the superlatives are warranted. Georgia is a vibrant land with stunning scenery, fascinating attractions and hospitality as a brand ... which is clearly what travellers are discovering. Let's raise a glass (or many) to that.
The writer was a guest of Bunnik Tours