The World Bank loan that pays for the Gurjaani-Telavi road

The road component names sections connecting Badiauri to Chalaubani, Chalaubani to Bakurtsikhe, and Gurjaani to Telavi, together with interchanges, overpasses, bridges and road safety works. That is the spine of the Kakheti wine route. Anyone running a guesthouse, a cellar or a tour out of Telavi or Gurjaani should read those three names carefully, because they describe the approach road to their own door.

The rail side of the package covers the purchase of electric locomotives for Georgian Railway, construction of electrical substations and institutional strengthening of the operator. Locomotives and substations are unglamorous items that decide how much freight a line can actually move and how reliably. The implementing bodies are Georgian Railway and the Roads Department, and the project's formal title is the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor Georgia Accessibility and Transport Improvement Project.

No start date, no completion date and no project duration were given. For a property owner in Kakheti that is the part to hold on to: a signed loan is a commitment to fund, not a date for the diggers. Road works also cut both ways while they run, since an improved approach in three years can mean a disrupted one next summer. If you are pricing a season, the useful next step is to watch for the Roads Department tendering individual sections.