Bina 37 takes the concept of urban winery to new heights. Quite literally. It’s new on the food and wine scene in Tbilisi and probably the oddest winery I have ever visited.

When I visited the first time, I felt as if I had been invited to a speakeasy. We came to a residential part of the city and then entered a nondescript new apartment structure and got into elevators that took us up to the penthouse. The owners have converted an eighth-floor apartment into a rooftop ‘marani’ where they host guests and serve delicious homemade food and their own wines which are made in qvevri that are buried where there was once supposed to be a rooftop pool. Groups are taken to different rooms furnished with antique tables and chairs, and dinner sets that have the “Dry Bridge” signature on them. There are often professional musicians singing Georgian folk songs and deeply emotional polyphonic music. You can join in if you know the songs. I do not, so I usually find someone to dance with.

Bina 37 is the essence of Georgian hospitality. I feel right at home. The owner gave me a jar of their homemade fermented jonjoli, simply because I kept talking about how wonderful it was.