Tbilisi (GBC) - The Georgian government will purchase grapes not delivered by the private sector from farmers this year as well, however, the procedure for forming the purchase price within the framework of the 2026 harvest is changing. According to the National Wine Agency, this year the price will be divided into three categories and will depend on the quality (sugar content) of the grapes.
This is an important innovation, because last year only one price was set for Saperavi and other grape varieties. In accordance with the Law “On Vine and Wine”, in the case of grapes of permitted varieties, price differentiation will be carried out by the percentage of sugar content.
What will the subsidy for the 2026 harvest cost the budget?
The government has so far issued only one decree for the 2026 harvest, according to which GEL 60 million should be spent on subsidies. However, the experience of past years shows that the actual expenditure, as a rule, is much higher than the original plan.
For comparison, the government had initially also set GEL 60 million for subsidizing the 2025 harvest, although in the end the actual expenditure turned out to be 3.5 times higher – GEL 220 million (in total, GEL 241 million was spent from the budget to purchase grapes that remained outside the private sector).
It should be recalled that within the framework of the 2025 harvest, due to a surplus harvest and low demand from the private sector, the state had to purchase 145,742,918 kilograms of grapes from the budget.
