A previous Kingdom of Kakheti was created in the 8th century following the successful rebellion of the mountainous tribes of Tzanaria, which freed a large part of Georgia from Arab control.

This took place after King George VIII, himself a usurper to the throne of Georgia, was captured by his defiant vassal Qvarqvare III, Duke of Samtskhe, in 1465, and dethroned in favor of Bagrat VI.

He then set himself up as an independent ruler in his former princely appanage of Kakheti, the easternmost province of Georgia centered on the river valleys of Alazani and Iori, where he remained, a sort of anti-king, till his death in 1476.

Furthermore, it had the advantage over other parts of Georgia of flanking the important Ghilan-Shemakha-Astrakhan “silk route.” The Kakhetian government sponsored this trade and actively participated in it, closely tying the kingdom to the economic life of eastern Transcaucasia and Iran.

The extensively cultivated fertile lands of Kakheti combined with vibrant Jewish, Armenian and Persian colonies in the trading towns of Gremi, Zagemi, Karagaji, and Telavi, resulted in prosperity, not observable in other parts of a fragmentized Georgia.

: 46–47 Threatened by the emerging Ottoman and Safavid empires, the kings of Kakheti persuaded a carefully staged politics of balance, and tried to establish an alliance with the co-religionist rulers of Muscovy against the shamkhals of Tarki in the North Caucasus.

The people of Kakheti refused to accept the patricide and overthrew him, forcing the energetic Safavid shah Abbas I to reluctantly recognize the rebels’ nominee and Constantine's nephew Teimuraz I as a new king in 1605.

The population of Kakheti dropped by two-thirds; once flourishing towns, like Gremi and Zagemi, shrank to insignificant villages; agriculture declined and commerce came to a standstill.

However, the service rendered by the Kakhetian prince Teimuraz II to Nader Shah of Iran in the struggle against the Ottomans resulted in an annulment of heavy tribute paid by Kakheti to the Iranian court in 1743.