Living Roots Travel

🌾There are places where history feels distant. And then there’s Georgia—where it keeps quietly rewriting itself.

📢This is BIG: New scientific research published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms what many here have long felt: Georgia is one of the world’s oldest centers of bread wheat origin.

Based on 8,000-year-old findings from Gadachrili and Shulaveri Gora, the study shows that bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) emerged independently during the Neolithic period — not just arriving here, but beginning here.

This is the earliest physical evidence of bread wheat discovered anywhere in the world. And yet, this story isn’t only about the past.
It’s still alive in the fields.

Georgia holds an extraordinary diversity of wheat — 15 of the world’s known species grow here, including several endemic varieties found nowhere else like Zanduri, Makha, Dika. These grains have adapted over millennia to harsh climates, poor soils, and sudden weather shifts — carrying resilience that feels increasingly relevant today.

What was once everyday practice is now global heritage. In 2025, UNESCO recognized “Georgian Wheat Culture: Traditions and Rituals” as Intangible Cultural Heritage — not just for the grains themselves, but for the entire cycle around them: sowing, harvesting, baking, and sharing bread as part of daily life and belief.

Today, farmers, researchers, and communities are working together to revive these ancient grains — protecting biodiversity, restoring land, and carrying forward a tradition that has shaped both land and identity for over 8,000 years.

Bread, in Georgia, is never just bread.
It’s a quiet continuity between earth, people, and time.

🔺Discover the origins on our Archaelogy Tours

P.S. what about the 🍯 we wonder?

Here’s a list of the festivals we love this season🍷 the ones we return to, again and again.

There’s something about gathering around natural wine in Georgia that feels both ancient and completely alive. In May, for three days, the country comes together to celebrate the new vintage, the people behind it, and a culture that runs deep. Still, it’s never really about the event itself - it’s about the people, and the stories you take with you. See you there on May 1-2 at Zero Compromise in Radiocity and May 3 at Saamuri Fabrika and Iago’s Winery in Chardakhi.

And while festivals come and go — cellar doors stay open. Meet the winemakers in their own cellars, all year round with Living Roots.

📩 DM or email us for a bespoke wine tour

Happy Easter ✨
With scenes from the one and only Nico Pirosmani, simple, enigmatic, and undeniably captivating - the kind that settle in, almost unnoticed.

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You can discover more about his life, art, and the world behind it on our curated art journeys.

🇯🇵🇬🇪 super news of the day: the khinkali character has officially been approved by Japan’s Ministry of Education and added to the 🎌 Jōyō Kanji list!

📍The character is composed of six borjgali-like folds, placed on the “mountain” kanji 山 (yama).
Above it, like rising steam, sits 今 (now), bringing the whole image together to suggest:
“Khinkali is best enjoyed in the mountains — right now.”

“A big milestone — and the result of 13 years of work,” writes the Japanese culture center in Tbilisi. ❤️

Actually this reminded us that we’d like to see the khinkali emoji added to the lists.

Explore with Living Roots the rich broth and tastes of various Khinkali from curated Tbilisi spots to the mountains - you’ll be surprised at how much more is there beyond the super nice meat ones 🥟

April in Georgia. Let’s gather.

For the past three years, Zuka has travelled to Vienna to collaborate with Rundbar — what began as a series of pop-ups slowly grew into something closer to a second home.

This April, the direction changes.

Rundbar closes its doors in Vienna for a week and comes to Georgia.

Hosted by Blue Fox, three days unfold around food, natural wine, music and long shared tables — culminating with a final gathering at Mutant Radio in Tbilisi.

More than a series of events, it is an invitation.

To experience Georgian hospitality at its most open and generous.
To taste Austrian and Georgian wines side by side.
To gather with friends, producers, cooks and the wider natural wine community.

For those who wish to travel along, Living Roots will guide the journey🍷

DM for more details & book your food & wine escape:
[email protected]

Some journeys begin with a specific curiosity.

Whether through architecture, archaeology, wine culture, gastronomy, crafts, photography, wildlife, or nature, our programs combine intellectual curiosity, study, and meaningful encounters with experts and practitioners — all within immersive travel experiences.

Meet us at ITB Berlin to explore these journeys across Georgia and the Caucasus.

📍 Hall 11.2 | Stand 110 | Booth 13

Arts and crafts reveal the rhythm of everyday culture.

From ceramic studios and textile workshops to artisans preserving regional techniques, our journeys connect guests with makers who keep traditions alive while shaping their contemporary expression.

Meet us at ITB Berlin to explore culture and tour programs through arts and crafts.

📍 Hall 11.2 | Stand 110 | Booth 13

Some of the best conversations in Georgia begin around wine.

From small family cellars to contemporary winemakers shaping a new chapter of an 8,000-year tradition, we open doors to the people and places behind the wines — connecting guests with the evolving identity of one of the world’s oldest wine cultures.

Meet us at ITB Berlin to discover our wine journeys.

📍 Hall 11.2 | Stand 110 | Booth 13

A Journey with Purpose

We believe travel should leave places stronger than it found them.

Through long-term collaboration with local communities, independent producers, small-scale service providers, and partnerships grounded in shared values, we design journeys that aim to create lasting value for people, places, guests, and business partners alike.

Meet us at ITB Berlin and learn more about our approach to responsible, community-focused travel.

📍 Hall 11.2 | Stand 110 | Booth 13

Slow-cooked traditions, seasonal ingredients, and tables that bring people together.

Georgia’s cuisine is shaped by landscape, history, and generations of home cooks and artisans — alongside a new wave of chefs reinterpreting local flavours through contemporary and modern cuisine.

We build journeys around these evolving food stories.

Meet us at ITB Berlin to talk gastronomy.

📍 Hall 11.2 | Stand 110 | Booth 13