Pshaveli is not a place most people plan a trip around, which is part of its charm. It sits in Kakheti, Georgia's great wine province, where the broad flat valley of the Alazani river runs along the foot of the Greater Caucasus. From here, the mountains look like a wall: a long blue line of ridges, often with snow on top, that marks the border with Dagestan and Chechnya and shuts out half the sky to the north. The nearest towns are Akhmeta, a small and workmanlike place a few kilometres off, and Telavi, the regional capital, about twenty kilometres away.
For the ride, this is the point where the lowlands end and the real climb begins. The surface is the usual Georgian mix: some good tar, some patches that suddenly turn to potholes, and the occasional cow standing in the road as if to remind you who owns it. Villages are strung along the way with fruit trees, walnut groves, vines trained over wooden frames and houses with carved balconies. Dogs, chickens and the occasional tractor demand your attention more than any traffic does.
Kakheti is where Georgian winemaking is said to date back thousands of years, and the traditional method still survives here: grapes pressed and fermented with their skins in a buried clay vessel called a qvevri. Amber wines, cloudy and tannic, are the local pride, and even a small village can have a family cellar that will pour you a glass if you stop and look curious. If you are riding, one polite sip is the only sensible measure; the mountain road ahead is not forgiving.
Think of this stop as the last proper preparation. Fuel is easiest in Akhmeta or Telavi, and you should leave here with a full tank, because the road beyond heads up into Tusheti, where no pump awaits. Take water, a warm layer, a rain jacket and some cash in lari. The morning is the time to move: clouds tend to build over the Caucasus by afternoon, and the high roads are better crossed in clear light. Pause, look up at the ridge, and decide whether you are really ready for what comes after the last village.