Azerbaijan Wine Tour – Land of Fire!
The Silk Route, ex-Soviet republic, oil & gas, the Formula 1 motor race, do these things ring a bell when we mention Azerbaijan? One thing that won’t spring to mind is an Azerbaijan wine tour. We guarantee you will be pleasantly surprised!
- Visit five wineries over three days in Azerbaijan
- Baku city tour + add the Mud Volcanoes, Sheki, and Lahic
- An expert local guide to show you this fascinating country
- Extensive tastings from tanks, barrels, and bottles
- Winemaker and agronomist-led tasting and tours
- Overnight at a winery hotel – sleep among the vines
Taking an Azerbaijan wine tour allows you to enjoy five interesting wineries on a compact circuit of the “Land of Fire”. Native grapes such as Madrasa and Bayan Shira blend with well-known international ones creating some delicious results.
There are some picture perfect cellars to be seen on Azerbaijan wine tours
An extra day or two would allow another winery plus some historic sites such as Sheki and Lahic, and some more things close to Baku such as the mud volcanoes and rock art national park. Azerbaijan has joined the growing trend of reviving ancient grapes and you will enjoy some indigenous varieties now being crafted with modern winemaking techniques.
We talk about the winery visits in more detail below but in general, Azerbaijan is blessed with a wealth of history and culture, we give you an introduction to this in Baku at the start of the trip. But, as we mentioned, if you have extra time for traveling around we highly recommend adding a couple of days in the beautiful city of Sheki with its Royal palaces, staging houses, and castle, plus the quaint hill town of Lahic.
Day 1 – Arrival Day & Wine Intro…
You may be arriving in Baku directly from home, or from another destination on our Birthplace of Wine triangle, for instance. Whenever you arrive we will meet you at the airport and transfer you to your hotel in central Baku. On your first night with us, we will take you to a wine bar for an introductory tasting of 3 or 4 local wines. This will whet your appetite for the wine experiences to come.
Indigenous grapes will be featured as much as possible during your tastings. Winemakers in Azerbaijan are also experimenting with the combination of French and Italian grapes with local ones creating some great blends.
Madrasa is the signature red wine grape, you will find it at many of the wineries you visit, often in interesting blends. Yalli from Firelands Winery (which you will visit first) has a Bordeaux blend with Madrasa for example. Bayan Shira is an indigenous white we really liked, especially at Chabiant.
Day 2 – Baku City Tour & Fireland Vineyards
We will pick you up after breakfast and take you to see some of spectacular Baku. This city is a beautiful blend of ancient and modern, from the 12th century Maidens Tower to the hyper-modern flame towers, and everything in between.
You will see some landmarks in the old, walled city followed by some of the modern highlights during the morning, including the carpet museum. Carpets are a source of national pride and the museum is filled with great examples, plus the building is actually shaped like a rolled carpet as you can see below.
We will visit Fireland Vineyards in the afternoon. This winery is surrounded by its estate measuring some 180 hectares (believe it or not this is one the smallest in the country). They recently had to construct an 11km fence to keep cows from trampling the vines. The vineyards are surrounded by salt lakes and this, plus the coastal effect, influence the wine style here.
As with all of the wineries on our Azerbaijan wine tours we are not just sitting in a tasting room, sipping from bottles. We taste from stainless tanks, sometimes the barrels, and where possible from experimental lines and work-in-progress. Of course also from the end product in the bottle. You will enjoy very broad tastings with snacks at each location, and Fireland is a great start.
Fireland is constructing a new facility for fruit vodkas, and they are the only place in Azerbaijan to have Georgian style Qvevri buried in the ground and they also have 225-litre stainless steel “barriques” for micro-vinification. After the Fireland visit, it is a 45-minute drive back to your hotel in Baku.
Day 3 – Az Granata and overnight at Chabiant
We head off into the desert countryside this morning with a two and a half-hour drive to the town of Agsu, where things become greener. Az Granata is a large and impressive winery with a huge array of products. Still wine, Pomegranate wine, Vodka, Brandy, Whisky, liquors and more. They have 350 hectares of Pomegranate trees alone and over 400 hectares of vines, many in far-flung parts of the country.
An unusual feature of this winery is the use of a Portuguese style Canteiro to produce an Azerbaijan Madeira. A glasshouse is located in the full glare of the sun (see the photo above) and we were told the temperature is often 55 degrees Celsius inside. The tasting room is very grand and also a mini-museum.
We then continue with around an hour drive to Chabiant Winery where you will spend the night. This winery has a hotel called Shato Monolit, and you will have rooms at the rear of the property with views over the vines and gardens. There is a good restaurant and also a swimming pool, and from our personal experience, a stay here is very relaxing indeed.
This relaxation is further enhanced by a winemaker-led tasting by the Italian Andrea Uliva. Andrea is very enthusiastic, and optimistic about his work with Azerbaijan terroir and leads you through his process in the vineyard and winery, tasting from tanks and bottles.
Enjoy some time for a relaxed dinner by the pool and a night of sound sleep in this very off-the-beaten-track place among the vines.
Day 4 – Savalan & Shirvan – back to Baku
After breakfast, continuing our Azerbaijan wine tour we will drive you through villages and rolling hills for around 90 minutes to arrive at the Savalan Winery. This place is well established and switched on, you will find lots of their entry and mid-range wines in supermarkets around the country. We felt that this was the best overall range of still wines we tasted, and they have some interesting offerings.
Extensive tasting flight of still wines at Savalan Winery 
Having fun with grapes – why wouldnt you?
For example, Savalan has a variation on Italian Ripasso. Some of their Cabernet Sauvignon is given the “Ripasso” treatment and as a result, enjoys more complexity. They are also producing a nice Grappa, obviously a heavy influence of their Italian winemakers. After a look around the facility and a great tasting, we head off again.
When we get to our final winery, Shirvan, you are likely to be hungry. Luckily we have chosen a place with a very nice restaurant overlooking the winery and vines. We will refuel and try a couple of their wines before enjoying a tour of this high investment facility. Many photo ops, a look in the winery store and a couple of glasses of wine later we will be ready to head back to Baku.
Note: Remember if you have extra time for your Azerbaijan wine tour to add cultural and historical visits, please ask us about the options. If you are heading out tonight we can transfer you to the airport, or if it’s overnight again in Baku we can pick you up tomorrow.
Our tours are all tailor-made so just give us the dates and timescales you are thinking of, your preferences and budget, and we will design the perfect tour for you in the Land of Fire.
