Wine & Spirits - June 2019 - 35

Text and Photos by
JOHN SZABO, MS

MOUNT ARARAT'S
SNOW-COVERED PEAK
RISES HIGH ABOVE
ARMENIA'S ANCIENT
WINEGROWING LANDS

he world's most ancient wine-producing region,
with 6,000 years of history, is barely six years into
a modern winemaking renaissance. Unlike neighboring Georgia, where wine production has continued unabated for millennia, Armenia's wine culture has
ebbed and flowed, and occasionally been drowned by waves
of inclement history. Yet a growing number of Armenians
are returning home with ambitions to resurrect the country's wine industry, exploring Armenia's abundance of literally antediluvian grape varieties.
The story begins in the Armenian highlands, in a dark
cave dubbed Areni-1 by archeologists. It lies about 60
miles southeast of the capital, Yerevan, near the village of
Areni in the region of Vayots Dzor. Mount Ararat's snowcovered peak is visible for most of the journey from Yerevan to Areni; the stratovolcano remains Armenia's sacred
national symbol, even though it lies outside the country's
present borders, in western Turkey. For wine historians, too,
Ararat is a mythical landmark; on its slopes, Noah is said
to have first set his Ark upon solid ground after the floods,
planted vineyards, made wine and got drunk.
But Areni-1 holds scientific, rather than biblical, interest.
An American-Armenian team of archeologists first discovered the site in 2007, and after several years of excavating,
they determined that the cave had been used for making
wine as early as 6,100 years ago. Although older vessels containing traces of fermented grape juice have been found in
neighboring Georgia and Iran, Areni-1 is, so far, the oldest
site unearthed where wine was not only stored, but also
purposely made.
Since grapes naturally ferment without intervention, it's
possible that the older vessels contained merely spoiled
grapes. At Areni-1, however, archeologists found a fourfoot basin made of hard-packed clay with a narrow channel leading to a buried clay vat. Copper Age vintners, it
was concluded, crushed grapes by foot, then let the juice
funnel into the vat below, where it would have spontaneously fermented under cool and stable temperatures. They
then stored the wine in clay amphorae called karas, the
Armenian equivalent of Georgia's qvevri, though slightly
different in shape.
Particularly exciting was the discovery of traces of a red
grape variety-seeds, stems and grape cells, plus the red
color pigment malvidin-on shards of karas. DNA studies have since linked it to areni, a variety named after the
village nearby where it still grows wild today in canyons,
gorges and on riverbanks. The cultivar is so old it has no
known ancestors. It's an 'orphan grape,' as Zorik Gharibian
of nearby Zorah winery describes it.
In its domesticated version, areni is also Armenia's most
important red-wine grape, central to the industry's revival.
Gharibian and others have forged a new link between the
world's most ancient wine grape and one of its most potentially exciting future ones.
During the intervening years, Armenia experienced both
WINE & SPIRITS

JUNE 2019

Wine & Spirits - June 2019

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