Georgia's Mountain Cheese Makers

This is a round of freshly made sulguni cheese, a Georgian specialty.

The cheese is made in the mountainous northwest Samegrelo (pictured) and Svaneti regions.

Each summer, Vladimir Bzhalava (pictured) and his two younger brothers head up to their mountain station in the Samegrelo mountains to spend summers tending their herd of cows, and making sulguni from their milk.

The cheese-making takes place in mountain huts like this one, which belongs to the Bzhalava family.

Inside, the huts are basic affairs without electricity or running water. The centerpiece is a firepit used for cheese-making.

The day’s work for the cheese makers starts at dawn, when milking gets under way.


 

After milking, the cows are led out to the summer pasture, where they spend the rest of the day eating lush mountain grass.
 

A Georgian flag in the mountains.

The summer season for sulguni makers is relatively brief. By early autumn, the men will drive their herd back down to the lowlands to avoid the fierce mountain winter.

In the summer hut, the Bzhalava brothers begin a complex process of warming, mixing, and cooling older batches of milk.

Part of the process includes using freshly picked ferns to strain the milk and remove any unwanted solids.

The curd is mixed and pulled until it reaches the texture of hot mozzarella.

The cheese is then shaped by hand into roundels that bob in this saltwater bath for several days.

As new cheeses are made, some finished sulguni are hung from the ceiling of the hut, where they yellow above the open fire and develop a smoky tang. 

Fresh sulguni is mild and soft and dribbles with milk. Once aged, the white cheese becomes salty and crumbly. 

Work continues into the night. The life of a cheese maker is tough, and the men say the money made from selling the cheese at nearby markets isn’t enough to attract the younger generations into the mountains.

But for now, Georgia’s handmade sulguni-making traditions continue under the clear mountain air of one of the country’s most picturesque regions.

All photos by David Tabagari; text by Amos Chapple based on reporting by Douglas E. Morris.