Experience the best of Signagi

Sighnaghi perches on a ridge in Kakheti, eastern Georgia, overlooking the broad Alazani Valley with the snow-capped Greater Caucasus beyond. King Erekle II fortified the town in the 1760s, and its walls, with their towers, climb the hillside around cobbled streets of balconied houses with red tile roofs. A local museum shows archaeology and paintings by Niko Pirosmani, the self-taught artist born in the Kakheti village of Mirzaani.

Bodbe Monastery, a short way outside town, holds the tomb of St Nino, who brought Christianity to Georgia in the fourth century, and its gardens look across the vineyards. Tsinandali, with its noble estate and garden, Telavi, and the royal fortress at Gremi lie further to the north-west.

Kakheti makes most of Georgia's wine, and the qvevri method, fermenting wine in buried clay jars, is on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage. Amber wines from white grapes left on their skins, the red Saperavi grape and churchkhela, walnuts strung and dipped in thickened grape juice, are the local tastes. The harvest in autumn is the high point of the year.