Armenia’s Struggling Vintners: Government Promotes Cognac, People Prefer Vodka
Sona Avagyan
17:11, January 25, 2013
Globally, 10 billion bottles of wine are sold every year. Armenia
sells around 600,000 bottles per year, some in the Russian market,
where 1.2 billion are sold yearly. Russia also consumes 93% of
Armenian cognac.
Only 5% of the Armenian cognac sold in Russia is purchased by the
wealthy elite. That’s because most of it is sold for 25-300 roubles;
the price of Russian wine. There are a few Armenian cognac varieties
that go for 1000 roubles.
All these numbers concern Avag Haroutyunyan, President of Armenia’s
Wine Growers Union. He says that cognac production and exports have
risen 10% over last year and are 30% higher than the record years back
in the Soviet era.
`Armenian cognac is fairly well known throughout the world. But
Armenian wine is another story,’ says Haroutyunyan. He believes that
wine growing in Armenia is losing out to cognac because that’s where
the investment is being directed. Armenian wines also aren’t well
represented on the international market.
He argues that for the past 150 years, first Russia and then the
Soviet Union targeted the best winemaking technologies to Georgia and
Bessarabia, while Armenia got the nod for cognac. This was due to the
fact that under Seljuk and Persian rule Armenia had lost a majority of
its grape gene pool – the best Armenian vineyards were in the
possession of foreign conquerors.
`The Georgians had an independent state in the 17th-18th century and
made sure their grapes weren’t destroyed. Thus, when Armenia was
incorporated into Tsarist Russia in 1828, we had grapes that were only
suited for vodka production. When European technology reached Armenia
in 1860-1870, it was quite easy to produce cognac from the grape
alcohol. That’s exactly what happened,’ says Haroutyunyan. Armenia led
Tsarist Russia in terms of cognac production.
Armenians have turned their back on wine, preferring vodka
The consumption of wine in Armenia has drooped in the last three years
after steadily rising since 2003. Consumption hit a peak in 2010 at
4.2 million liters. Ten years before, the number was 3 million.
Consumption today averages 3.5 million liters. 3. 6 million liters of
locally produced wine was consumed in 2012. During the past twelve
years, foreign wine imports have increased tenfold.
In terms of per capita consumption, the figure is one liter for
Armenia. In Europe it’s fifty liters.
`What Armenia needs is a new culture of wine appreciation. Armenians
have traditionally turned away from drinking wine and that’s a
dangerous trend. Wine, especially red wine, has proven health
benefits. Wine is akin to medicine and is a cultural pastime in much
of the world. Numerous studies have shown that men should drink 400
grams of dry red wine daily. The figure for women is a minimum of 200
grams,’ Avag Haroutyunyan says.
The vintner says that the drop in Armenian wine consumption can be
linked to emigration and the fact the puzzling trait of Armenians to
appreciate foreign goods over local products.
`Today in Armenia there are three or four companies that have reached
a high level in terms of quality. Armenian wines that today are priced
at 2,000 – 3,000 AMD are just as good qualitatively as wines in the
1-1.5 Euro range sold overseas but are priced at 4,000 – 5,000 AMD
when imported to Armenia,’ Haroutyunyan says. The wine expert adds
that only 10% of the wines sold on the Armenian market are of
reputable quality.
Haroutyunyan believes it’s a good thing that Armenians are drinking
less vodka. The record year for vodka consumption in Armenia during
the past twelve years was in 2005 when 16 million liters of domestic
vodka was sold. A bit less than that was also imported.
When you add the consumption of domestic and imported vodkas, the per
capita figure for Armenia was in the top three globally, along with
Russia and Moldova.
Vodka consumption started to drop in 2007, but rose again with the
onset of the economic crisis of 2009-2009. It’s been falling steadily
since 2010. This is true for domestically produced vodka and the
cheaper imports. Sales of expensive vodkas have remained unchanged.
`We drink vodka due to a lack of state policy. We aren’t a nation of
wine drinkers,’ argues Haroutyunyan. He blames wine growers for
lagging in terms of advertising Armenian wines both locally and
internationally.
Haroutyunyan voices a ray of hope and says that Armenian wine growers
have bandied together and have convinced the government to draft an
extensive project to promote domestic wine production and exports.
Two new programs to promote Armenia wines
It’s a 120 million AMD public relations project planned for 2013-2015.
Armenian wines will get greater exposure at international exhibitions
and advertising to improve the image of Armenian wines domestically
will take place.
On January 25, representatives of the CBI (Centre for the Promotion of
Imports from Developing Countries, an Agency of the Netherlands
Ministry of Foreign Affairs) met with the largest wine growers here in
Armenia.
The plan is for the CBI to select ten domestic growers who will be
allocated 10-15,000 Euros each to promote their product in the
European market. Haroutyunyan says that Georgian wines are well known
internationally due to the investment and professional advice provided
by such foreign institutions.
`99% of the success in wine growing comes directly from the grape
variety. All the rest, the equipment, technology, advertising, is just
supplemental. It’s the grape itself that’s key, the history of the
land. Producing quality wine is a very long-term process. It takes a
minimum of 100-200 years to perfect,’ says Haroutyunyan.
Armenian indigenous grape varieties decimated
He says that Armenia once had a large gene pool of numerous grape
varieties; a fact that allowed scientists some 100 years ago to claim
that the grape is native to the Armenian Highlands. Globally, there
are 6-7,000 varieties of grapes and 600 are to be found in the
Armenian Highlands. Traces of Urartian and pre-Urartian wine making
culture have been found in the vicinity of Lake Van. For millennia,
Armenian villagers have been cultivating grapes, sorting out the best
varieties out of the thousands that existed.
`We’ve ended up in a funny situation. When people ask how many grape
varieties we have, we can only count one or two. In other words, a
constant policy of destroying these grape varieties has been going
on,’ Haroutyunyan notes.
He says that currently there are 1,200 grape varieties in western
Armenia and that the Turks still haven’t gotten around to changing the
Armenian names of some 300. There are some 140 types of wine grapes in
Azerbaijan that were introduced by Armenians. The reason is that until
1930 in Turkey and 1918 in Tsarist Russia, Muslims were not allowed to
grow wine grapes. He claims that this came about when Islam first
spread to the region in the 8th century AD.
During the Soviet era, new grape varieties were selected for Armenia
that were supposed to reflect Soviet policy. They were designed to be
of poor quality but provide bumper harvests. After the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the vineyards of both the old and new varieties fell
into disuse.
`We had 600 indigenous varieties of grape. Today, we don’t know what
we have left of those 600. Perhaps a mere 100-120 have been preserved.
We don’t understand the language of those 120. Now, we are only
working with the Areni and Kakheti red grapes and 3-4 whites. What we
have to do is select 5-10 of the best indigenous varieties and work
with them, to cultivate them, in order to show the world our
uniqueness. These varieties can only be found in Armenia. Today, we
have serious competition from Georgia, Turkey and Azerbaijan. They are
claiming those varieties for themselves,’ says Haroutyunyan
The vintner believes that Armenia is travelling down a dangerous road
by importing grape varieties from aboard and growing them. `This
approach spells doom for Armenia,’ Haroutyunyan says.
The old vineyards in Armenia are falling prey to the phylloxera and
other pest related blights. 99% of the vineyards in Armenian belong to
local villagers who don’t have the resources to restore them. The
youngest vineyards were planted in the 1970s and in ten years they’ll
disappear.
`When people mention Areni they believe it’s a blend of 10-15
varieties. In fact, there are only 100 or 200 hectares of the Areni
grape in cultivation. There are plans to increase the acreage of
vineyards by another 400 hectares. But what grape varieties will be
planted remains a mystery,’ says Haroutyunyan.