By Prof. Giorgi Pkhakadze, MD, MPH, PhD · 15/09/2026
Every visitor asks. They hang in bunches at the roadside from Tbilisi to Telavi, from stalls at Ananuri and Sighnaghi, from the rafters of every Kakhetian marani: strings the length of a forearm, lumpy, the colour of dried plums or of old gold. The Georgian name is churchkhela, and the honest description — walnuts threaded on a string and dipped repeatedly in thickened grape juice until coated — does not begin to cover what they mean.
How it is made
It starts with the harvest. Fresh grape must — the juice before it ferments — is boiled with flour until it thickens into a warm purple custard, tatara in Kakheti, pelamushi when eaten as a pudding. Walnut halves (or hazelnuts, or in Imereti sometimes almonds) are threaded on a cotton string with a needle, about twenty to a strand. The strand is dipped into the tatara, hung to set, dipped again, hung again — four or five times over a day — until the coating is thick and even. Then the strings hang in the sun for a week, and in a dry room for a month or more. A finished churchkhela is firm, chewy, slightly tart from the grape, rich from the nuts, and keeps for a year.
No sugar is added. The sweetness is the grape’s own; in a good year and from Saperavi grapes the coating is deep purple, from Rkatsiteli it is amber. Mass-produced versions at the airport add sugar and colouring; the ones in a village kitchen do not, and you can taste the difference in a second bite.
Why the army
The legend — and Georgians will tell it as fact — is that churchkhela was the ration of the Georgian soldier. It is light, dense in calories, needs no cooking and does not spoil; a man could carry a week’s energy on a string over his shoulder. Whether or not King David’s cavalry actually rode to Didgori on walnuts and grape juice, the logic is sound, and hikers in Svaneti still pack it.
How to eat it
Not as a sweet after dinner — Georgians eat it as a snack, with tea, or on the road. Cut it into rounds with a knife, or bite. The cotton string in the middle is not eaten. Pair it with chacha if it is evening, with strong tea if it is morning. Buy it from a person, not a shelf: at the harvest, from the family that made it that week.
See it with GTour
On every Kakheti tour there is a stop at a village market or a marani where churchkhela hangs; on the Rtveli harvest tour and the Grand Wine & Heritage tour you make your own. The Kakheti wine day ends with a bag of them for the road.
ქართულად: ჩურჩხელა — კაკლის „სანთელი“, რომელმაც ჯარი გამოკვება
