Georgian Wine Museum Is Making a Strategic Decision

Georgia has a rich unbroken 8000-year history of wine production and is home to over 500 unique indigenous grape varieties. Despite the deep-rooted history and the recent growth of tourism to Georgia, the Georgian wine has not yet been showcased at the level it deserves. The idea of the National Wine Museum has been discussed for a long time, but the strategic decision to establish a stationary wine museum in the country’s capital, the city of Tbilisi, has not been made yet. Instead, numerous Georgian wine artefacts are spread out in different local museums throughout the country. Periodically, these wine relics are assembled into travelling exhibitions and displayed in different European cities. Although such exhibitions widen the reach of the Georgian wine brand as the ‘cradle of wine’ and assist in sharing the Georgian wine culture and history with international audiences, they are costly and time-consuming. On the other hand, the establishment of a stationary wine museum in Georgia is a large-scale project requiring hefty initial capital investment, administrative overhead, operating costs, outreach, marketing, visitor services and security expenses. So, the question is—should Georgia develop a stationary wine museum in its capital or should the ‘cradle of wine’ continue showcasing its wine collection as interpretive travelling exhibitions in different parts of the world?