Georgia's City of Love — wine country, Alazani Valley views, and qvevri amber
Sighnaghi (Signagi) is a small hilltop town in Kakheti, Georgia's main wine region — nicknamed the City of Love after the municipality installed a 24-hour marriage registration office to attract romantic visitors. Its cobblestone lanes, colourful balconied townhouses, and 18th-century walls overlooking the Alazani River plain toward the Caucasus mountains are among the most photogenic scenes in the Caucasus. The wine is natural, old-world, and unlike almost anything else: Rkatsiteli and Saperavi grapes fermented in buried clay qvevri jars, producing amber (skin-contact) whites and deep tannic…
Sighnaghi was fortified in the 18th century by King Erekle II of the Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, who built the 4km circuit of defensive walls and 23 towers to protect the town and its wine-growing population from Lezgian raiding parties descending from the Caucasus. The town was absorbed into the Russian Empire in 1801 and declined slowly through the Soviet period when the wine industry was collectivized. Its 2007 renovation — UNESCO-acknowledged historic streetscapes restored, walls repaired, boutique hotels opened — made Sighnaghi Georgia's first successful heritage tourism town and a model…