Traditional Guda Cheese Dovna is made from a mix (50/50) of cow’s and sheep’s raw milk in Tusheti, from May to August inclusive. The originality of the cheese is conditioned primarily by high quality of the milk yielded from Tushuri cow and Tushuri sheep grazing on alpine pastures of Tusheti.

 Dovna is made from freshly collected raw milk, which is filtered in a double strainer laid out with different healing herbs: nettle, suck-bottle and feather-grass. The filtered milk is mixed with the preliminary prepared rennet and in order to keep in the warmth it is covered with a felt cloak. In an hour, the curd is stirred up and kept covered again with the felt cloak. Thereafter, the curd is squeezed to release it from the whey, the remaining soft cheese is cut and wrapped by a special sackcloth, by means of which the cheese mass is well sqeezed and shaped into round cylinders.

 The formed sackcloth-wrapped block of cheese is put on the cheese board and covered with a felt cloak for 2 hours, following which the cheese is placed in a preliminary prepared guda (a sack made of sheep skin); four to five blocks of cheese are placed in the sack and are covered with layers of salt. Thereafter the cheese guda is moved to a cheese room and covered again with the felt cloak to keep it warm for 2 days. The cheese is rolled several times a day in order that the fresh cheese is well shaped and equally salted.

 The ripening of the cheese Dovna in the guda will take minimum 60 days, after which the cheese will be ready for sale. The taste is pungent and spicy with delicate aroma. 

 Dovna is the appellation of origin. Members of the Co-op “Alaznistavi” named this cheese after their native village of Gometseri gorge, the adjacent territory of Dochu - the wonderful monument of the Georgian highland architecture.