Lopota Lake Resort & Spa

A Private Lake Built Into a Family's Twenty-Year Project

Lopota Lake Resort & Spa occupies sixty hectares in the Kakheti foothills, wrapped around a lake that founder Goga Maisuradze turned from a forgotten body of water into the anchor of a full resort. Deer, horses, sheep, swans and ducks move across the grounds more or less as they please, and sixteen separate buildings keep the scale from ever feeling like a single oversized hotel block. Two decades on, the project is still family-run, now carried forward by the next generation, and it shows in details a corporate resort chain rarely bothers with.

Why It Works

We chose Lopota because it does more than any single-purpose hotel in this selection: a resort built around a lake and genuine wildlife, a bio-certified winery producing its own wine on site, a Valmont forest spa, and a jazz club that runs real live sets rather than background music. Few Kakheti addresses combine wine-country credibility with resort-level infrastructure, tennis courts, pools, horseback riding and quad tours included, and Lopota manages both without either side feeling like an afterthought.

Why This Location

The resort sits in the Napareuli microzone, the same patch of Kakheti prized for its vineyards, about two hours from Tbilisi by car and close enough to Telavi and the region's wine road to use as a base for day trips. The Caucasus foothills rise directly behind the lake, and the sixty-hectare grounds give guests room to walk, ride or cycle without leaving the property, which matters in a region where the next attraction is usually a vineyard best reached slowly, by car, rather than on foot.

Fast Facts

• Price: Luxe

• Vibe: Family-founded lake resort, part vineyard estate, part wellness retreat

• Rooms: Several hundred, spread across sixteen buildings, from Superior Twin to Duplex and Executive Suite

• Best For: Longer Kakheti stays, families, couples combining wine touring with a proper resort

• Our Favorite Thing About the Hotel: Chateau Buera, the resort's own bio-certified winery, producing limited organic wine on site

• Dining: Five distinct venues spanning Georgian, European and Asian cuisine, including a rooftop bar

• Amenities: Forest spa by Valmont, indoor and outdoor pools, jazz club, tennis, horseback riding, quad tours, fishing

• Attractions: The Napareuli wine microzone and Telavi a short drive away; the lake and Caucasus foothills on site

Chateau Buera, the Resort's Own Winery

Chateau Buera, the winery Goga Maisuradze founded at Lopota, works fully bio-certified vineyards in the Napareuli microzone and keeps production deliberately small, favouring what the soil gives over volume. It is now led by the family's next generation, and the wine reaches guests directly, through a dedicated restaurant on the property rather than through a distributor. For a resort already built around a lake and a spa, having a serious, independently certified winery attached is the detail that moves it from a wellness destination to a genuine Kakheti wine address.

Spa, Jazz and the Rest of the Grounds

The Forest Spa, run with Valmont, sits away from the main resort buildings and pairs treatments with the surrounding woodland; a Slavic bath and both indoor and outdoor pools round out the wellness side. In the evenings, the Lopota Jazz Club puts the resort's distinctive architecture to use for live sets, open to guests sixteen and over. By day, the grounds accommodate tennis, horseback riding tours, quad bikes and fishing on the lake, enough that a multi-day stay rarely repeats itself.

Before You Book

Lopota is roughly two hours from Tbilisi by car, which makes it a poor day trip and a strong base for two or three nights in Kakheti. Rooms range from Superior Twin to Executive Suite and Duplex categories across sixteen buildings, so it is worth specifying a lake or vineyard view when booking. Five restaurants cover most tastes on site, and the resort welcomes families as well as couples, though the jazz club itself is restricted to guests aged sixteen and over.