ARMENIA: ENDEARING, SCRAPPY MOUNTAIN COUNTRY IN THE CAUCASUS
By Becky Sue Epstein
Arriving at night at an airport at the end of a journey, sometimes
it’s hard to realize how remote a location you’re in until you start
driving around the next day. This is what happened to me when I landed
in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, a few weeks ago.
Armenia is a small landlocked country east of Turkey, in the Caucasus
Mountains. It has been even less accessible for the better part of the
20th century for being incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1922 and
locked up behind the Iron Curtain. But when the Soviet Union started
to crumble in the early 1990s Armenia became an independent state,
which has been both wonderful and terrible for Armenia.
Not being an economist, I can only judge Armenia by factors I know
best: mainly wines and spirits. General observation shows a country
split into three centuries: pre-industrial villages and farming;
Soviet-era infrastructure, often derelict and crumbling; and splashes
of 21st century in ubiquitous cellphone use and a capital city dotted
with high end cars and fashionable people. Yerevan itself is at an
altitude of 3,000 feet, and mountains figure dramatically in much
of the country’s charming, dramatic, and/or primitive settlements
and landscape. Vineyards are planted on high plains or hillsides in
several areas of the country.
My purpose in going to Armenia was to learn about its great brandies.
Oh, you didn’t know about them? Armenia has been making quality
cognac-style brandies since the late 1800s. A merchant called Nerses
Tahiryan started the Noy Brandy Company in 1877, on the site of a 16th
century Persian castle in Yerevan. Acquiring a copper pot-still from
Cognac, he hired an Armenian who had graduated from the wine school in
Montpellier, France. The first cognacs were called “Fine-Champagne”
and made in the same style as Cognac’s Fine Champagnes, but with
native Armenian grapes. And it apparently turned out very well, as the
distiller was able to source grapes with the right qualities for his
“cognac.”
By the way, brandy is still called “cognac” in most of Armenia as they
haven’t yet signed on to any agreement with Cognac, France, not to use
the term. And it might be some time before they do. When the Soviet
Union disbanded, Armenia was left without outlets for the goods it
had been manufacturing for the USSR, as the newly-independent states
were then free to source shoes and other goods from cheaper sources
(such as China). Armenia, however, had been the chief supplier of
brandy for this group of countries, and it still supplies them with
a fair amount. With the word “cognac” signifying top quality, it’s
unclear to me when the Armenian producers might convert to using
the word “brandy.” (The Cognac situation is similar to Champagne’s:
most people today ask for a glass of “champagne” when they mean any
sparkling wine, anywhere in the world.)
Getting back to the Noy Brandy Company: the firm remained in business
making wines and brandies through the Soviet era, until the whole
factory was abandoned from 1991 to 2002. The company was then revived
by private owners, and since 2004 has produced only brandy – though
the old wines are still stored there in a cellar. It produces several
different lines of brandies that sell well in Armenia, Russia and
other nearby countries.
Noy is the Armenian name for the Noah, who many people believe to
have landed his ark on Mount Ararat after the Biblical flood. The
peak was once positioned inside pre-Soviet Armenia but is now in
Turkey. The other big brandy company in Yerevan is called Ararat. It
is currently owned by the French-based international spirits company
Pernod Ricard. This is an efficient, very well-appointed facility,
doing a wonderful multi-country business with brandies ranging from
3 to 20 years of age; 92% of the brandy is exported.
In terms of wine, there are people in several areas working on the wine
industry. The chairman of the Armenian Union of Wine-Makers, Professor
Avag Harutyunyan, has done an impressive amount of research on the
terroir of Armenia-cataloguing soils, degree days and microclimates
and other elements essential for anyone who wants to grow wine grapes
in the country.
[IMG_3429.jpg] He and his son have also begun to renovate part of an
abandoned Soviet-era wine factory where they have started their own
company, Maran Wines. Using Armenian oak, they make dry and sweet
wines, both red and white, pomegranate wine, as well as vodka. He is
also working to change the (somewhat arbitrary) Soviet message that
Armenia was only good for brandy production.
Several others are also working on this. One is international winemaker
Paul Hobbs, who, with brothers Viken and Vahe Yacoubian, has “been
involved with an Armenian project which has devoted considerable time
to identifying the native grapes. This year we are planting an 18
acre parcel at 1,400 feet in elevation in the Aghvenadzor region.” His
message to me concluded: “It is a thrill to be involved in the early
stages of Armenia’s viticultural renaissance.”
Though I didn’t see this project, I did visit a small family winery in
the same area. It is owned by Vahram Matevosyan, an important man in
his village. His winery is adjacent to (and under) his house, where
I sat down for a traditional afternoon meal of garden-fresh salads,
vegetables, herbs, cheeses, homemade fruit compote and lavash bread
with him and his wife. He makes traditional sweet and semi-sweet wines,
as well as dry wines. He owns vineyards and buys grapes from other
growers as well, and exports mainly to Russia and Ukraine, though at
times he has gotten some of his wines into Europe and California. These
wines are more in a “traditional” style, meaning they are mainly not
the dry wines a Western clientele would expect.[IMG_3163-300×225.jpg]
Going out from Yerevan in the opposite direction (west), I also took a
day trip to the Armavir area, specifically to Armavir Vineyards, which
has an international group of winemakers working at its 400-hectare
site. Originally, most of the grapes planted here were “cognac
varieties” that were sold for industrial production. This is gradually
evolving to wine grapes that are vinified in modern production methods
on the property. Grapes are hand-harvested here, because of tradition,
available manpower and, I suspect, lack of machinery. This winery is
owned by an Argentinean-Armenian industrialist, and his winemakers
also treated us to a lovely traditional Armenian lunch with fresh
salads, meat and cheese dishes breads and herbs. (Though I later
noticed the young workers who came into the dining room had a range
of dry cereals for their snacks, just like young people in the West.)
As a contrast, the Vedi-Alco company tugged at my heart with its
brave bootstrapping of an old Soviet wine factory, bit by bit. We
tasted around a kitchen table set in the barebones laboratory-also
set with a small offering of cheeses and breads for a snack. After
the collapse of the Soviet Union, they didn’t know how to sell their
brandy, so they made cheap vodka for a while. Now they make brandy
mainly for the Russian market, and fruit vodkas.
With their new line of wines, everything from last September’s harvest
was already gone, so it looks like if they can improve production
numbers and methods, they may finally be on an upswing.
Still another company, the Proshyan Brandy Factory located on Yerevan’s
outskirts, was most impressive in its display of sophisticated offices
and industrial-scope production. With a wide range of brandies, wines,
spirits and preserves-and some great lifestyle videos online-this
group was obviously backed by wealthy owners who are finishing up a
new building with even classier headquarters. These are the people
who also offer their brandies in exotic glass containers like swords,
bulls, fish, lions, tigers, and dragons. I got a bottle with a glass
rose inside-for ladies.
Armenia’s story is that it is the first place wine was made, over
8,000 years ago. This claim has gotten some credence by very recent
finds of ancient fermented grape residue in clay vessels. However,
it’s the same claim that the neighboring country of Georgia has been
successful in disseminating. I can’t, at this point, imagine a joint
Georgian-Armenian wine alliance, so it will be interesting to see
how Armenia will get its message-and its wines-across to the rest of
the world.
Becky Sue Epstein is Palate Press’s International Editor. An
experienced writer, editor, broadcaster, and consultant in the fields
of wine, spirits, food, and travel, her work appears in many national
publications including Art & Antiques, Luxury Golf & Travel, Food +
Wine, and Wine Spectator. She began her career as a restaurant reviewer
for the Los Angeles Times while working in film and television.
http://palatepress.com/2012/06/wine/armenia-endearing-scrappy-mountain-country-in-the-caucasus/