This year's grape price in Kakheti turns on sugar content: 1.50 lari for Saperavi at 21%, 30 tetri below 17%

The state-owned Harvest Management Company set out what it will pay per kilogramme this season. For Saperavi: 1.50 lari for standard undamaged grapes with sugar content of at least 21%, 0.90 lari where sugar is between 17% and 21% or the fruit is partly damaged, and 0.30 lari below 17% sugar or with significant damage. For other permitted varieties: 1.30 lari for undamaged fruit at 20% sugar or above, 0.80 lari between 17% and 20%, and 0.30 lari below 17%. These are purchase prices, not subsidies — the money is paid for the grapes rather than added on top.

As of 18 September, reception points across Kakheti had processed close to 12,400 tonnes, of which 6,800 tonnes were Saperavi and 1,700 tonnes Rkatsiteli. Nearly 400 wineries were registered with the harvest coordination headquarters and were due to join grape reception in stages rather than all at once. The season's forecast is around 320,000 tonnes, so the mid-September figure represents the opening weeks of a long intake. For anyone running wine tourism, that staging is why the reception yards look busy at very different moments in different districts.

If you are looking at vineyard land in Kakheti, the price schedule is the clearest statement available of what quality is worth here: the gap between the top and bottom rate for the same variety is five to one, and it is decided by sugar at the reception point, not by reputation. That favours sites and management that get fruit properly ripe, and it is a sharper due-diligence question than yield per hectare. Exports give the other half of the picture — the National Wine Agency reported 17.3 million litres of wine shipped to 51 countries in the first quarter of 2026, up 5% year on year, for 53.2 million dollars, up 7%.