481: Wine Before and After the Genocide

[00:00:01] I grew up in a family where wine and alcohol was not a part of our family culture, whereas food was important to our family and we did a lot of home entertaining because we were

[00:00:30] not allowed in the major important restaurants. Even after I was in college, we were still not allowed. That's Catherine Moore, the long-time sales general manager at Union Square Wines in Manhattan.

[00:00:46] She was born in the 1940s and grew up in Baltimore, Maryland, and what she is describing is racial segregation in a city with a long history of housing discrimination. Catherine Moore is black and her family wasn't allowed to eat in the fancier restaurants in her hometown.

[00:01:03] That unfair barrier continued in Baltimore through her adult years, but she found something different when she traveled to Europe and was able to enjoy the sort of fine dining experiences that had been denied to her previously.

[00:01:18] The breakthrough came in 1965 when I traveled to Europe for the first time with a small dance company. We left England and went to Germany, and there we were introduced to something more than Liebfraumilch, which was the college trend at the time. And from Cologne, we flew

[00:01:42] into Paris. When I first looked out over the wing through a propeller—by the way, planes were props then—and saw the Eiffel Tower, I thought I had come home. And the first night

[00:01:56] we dined at Le Select in Montparnasse, I fell in love. French cuisine, French wines. We made a side trip to the Loire Valley to tour, and there I was introduced to Rouvray and some of the Sauvignon Blancs of the region, and I was smitten.

[00:02:24] Not long after she first visited France, Catherine Moore was invited to Aubert Duvalin's house in Burgundy for a dinner and a vertical of La Tache from the cellar of Domaine de la Romne-Cantille.

[00:02:38] That was just out of this world. I mean, when you start with that, where do you go? And when you don't have a lot of education and experience in the wine world, it doesn't

[00:02:52] take on the proper perspective. Now I would love that opportunity, and I think I would appreciate it much more than I did at that time. They invited me to stay overnight, and

[00:03:07] the next morning at 9.30 or so, I had a polite knock at the door, and I was told we had an appointment at Guy Relou's at 10 o'clock to start tasting. Well, there I was lying in bed and the room was spinning still. I hadn't moved.

[00:03:26] In 1975, Catherine Moore returned to France, this time to participate in the grape harvest at Domaine du Wett in the Loire Valley. She found the work to be physically demanding, even for someone who has a background in a professional dance troupe. She worked alongside

[00:03:42] some older people who had never encountered a black woman before. Tourism may be 8 to 11 kilometers away. These were 85-year-old women who'd never even been to tour. And finally, by the second week, one of the women worked up the nerve to ask

[00:04:01] me if they could rub my hand to see if that brown would come off. Several years later, Catherine Moore traveled to Italy, where she made a visit to meet Bartolo Mascarello. Mascarello responded to her visit with a kind gesture.

[00:04:17] He was a very frail man. We felt that we were in the presence of greatness. He sat there and without our knowing drew dedicated labels to each of us, which I treasure that bottle. Catherine Moore was denied access to wine experiences in her hometown for multiple decades.

[00:04:42] Lee Campbell grew up a few decades after Catherine Moore, but not that far away geographically. She described a very different set of experiences that she encountered as a black woman. I've been to a lot of beautiful restaurants. My parents loved to eat out and I'd always

[00:04:58] gotten to go to wonderful restaurants around New York and around the country. For Lee Campbell, who later became a wine director in Brooklyn, it wasn't a denial of access to restaurants or to wine that originally kept her away from the wine world. It was something else.

[00:05:16] When you poo-poo something, there's also sometimes a part of you that wonders if you're good enough, if you have what it takes, or if you're smart enough, or if you're sophisticated enough to work with something like wine. And I certainly had friends and even a boyfriend

[00:05:28] at the time that made me feel like, you know, if you do this wine thing, you have to act this way. And I was like, I don't know if I want to, and I don't even know if I can.

[00:05:38] I mean, let's be honest. You're a black woman. Probably not so many other black women around that you can look at and be like, well, that person's doing it. Yeah, it's true. And a couple of people that I did know weren't really interested in mentoring

[00:05:48] me, which is why I try really hard to support anybody who comes to me, black, white, you know, female, male. But I think the other thing is, is that, um, I don't know, you know, Levy, I was thinking about this earlier today.

[00:06:03] I don't think the real reason I didn't want to become a sommelier right off was because I didn't see people like me doing it because that had never stopped me before. They never, you know, I mean, it just, I think it's just that wine didn't feel like something

[00:06:16] that was like loving or something. It didn't feel, it didn't feel nice to me. It felt kind of mean. What Lee Campbell suggested that the wine space isn't very friendly is a view that many

[00:06:29] people also seem to share of the wine world today. Something else some people might relate to is the sense that when you have experienced situations where you don't feel valued or you feel belittled and that feeling is normalized as what happens, you may be more apt to accept

[00:06:46] future situations where you feel that same way again. As somebody who has worked for a number of years in the high end restaurant world, I thought I recognized something in the way that Conrad Reddick, who is black, was describing his work experiences. And so

[00:07:02] I asked him this question. Were you ever picked on as a kid by other kids? All the time, yeah. Listen to how in the same interview, Conrad Reddick described meeting a future boss for the first time. What was Charlie like the first time he met him?

[00:07:20] Intentionally intimidating, I think. He was an intimidating person, especially, especially at such a young age when, you know, I held him in, and I think most of the community in very high esteem.

[00:07:33] I think a lot of people who suffer from issues around self-esteem, as I do, might identify with what he then said about working in that job. There were definitely times when, when I was in there and I was like, I can't, I can't

[00:07:47] do this. I can't handle this. But to his credit, Conrad Reddick excelled at that job and attempted also to break the cycle of intimidation that may have been a familiar pattern. What did you have to learn or what was invaluable for you to learn as a manager?

[00:08:04] In Las Vegas, people management. Taking my somewhat focused and direct personality and coupling that with some kind of positive reinforcement and not just being kind of the whip or the arrow and saying, you know, that's wrong, but here's how we're going to learn from it.

[00:08:25] And, you know, trying to offer a duality of situations, you know, criticism for certain you have to, but also empowerment, building people up. I think one of the core managerial philosophies that I like is just empowering everyone that I possibly can to the extent that I possibly can.

[00:08:41] As much as you can get them involved and take ownership, that's what you should do personally. These are all very different experiences involving restaurants and the wine world, and very different perspectives should be regularly shared and encouraged to be shared.

[00:08:57] And that is part of why I recently began a mentorship program for people of color who would like to begin a podcast. A number of people have already responded to my offer of free mentorship to start a podcast. Maybe you would like to be one of them.

[00:09:13] If so, please send me an email at levyopenswine at gmail.com. This is LEVI, opens with an S, wine at gmail.com for more information. I am offering free mentorship to people of color who would like to start a podcast and share their experiences.

[00:09:32] And it doesn't have to be a wine podcast. It could be any kind of podcast. Reach out to me if you would like to hear more about this mentorship opportunity for people of color. More diversity will enable more answers. Let's get there together.

[00:09:50] I'll drink to that where we get behind the scenes of the beverage business. I'm Levi Dalton. I'm Erin Scala. And here's our show today. I talk to winemakers all the time and something they tell me is that oxygen management is a key to aging wine.

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[00:11:34] Zorak Garibian, the owner of Zora Wines in Armenia on the show today. Hello sir, how are you? It's a pleasure to be here. So you were born in Iran to Armenian parents? Exactly. I'm 100% Armenian, diasporan Armenian. And when I was a teenage, revolution happened.

[00:11:55] So my parents sent me to a boarding school in Venice, Italy. I did my studies and then from Venice I moved to Milano and that's where I live now. I have my family.

[00:12:09] So the Shah fell in the 70s in Iran and so your parents got you out of Iran at that time? Yeah, I was a teenager. I was 14 years old, but all my education from the birth and everything has been Armenian. So boarding school, Armenian boarding school in Venice.

[00:12:31] I did my teenage years there, but Venice after graduation, I could have become a gondoliere. So there were no jobs. There were no jobs. I decided to move to Milano. My work has been in fashion.

[00:12:50] Then happened that the Soviet Union collapsed and for the first time in 1998, I go to Armenia as a tourist. And you're about 30 at that time? Yeah. These are the years that Italy was giving away the production to other countries. This was from the beginning of 90s.

[00:13:18] So I had already productions in Romania, Bulgaria, and I was in Armenia as a tourist. You're saying that the textile industry, there were factories that were being created in Eastern Europe by Italian companies to make clothing. Yeah. Yeah. And that was your field? Yeah.

[00:13:38] I was in that field and I had orders, I had everything. So by visiting Armenia, I started to think why not in Armenia? Because Armenia grabbed my attention and my heart right away. From the first moment I walked into Armenia, also because all my education has been in

[00:13:56] Armenian. So I started to send orders to Armenia to send know-how. My Italian technicians were flying into Armenia and I was producing in Armenia. And then from there, going to Armenia, of course, I was not in wine, but wine has been always my passion.

[00:14:21] And even before going to Armenia, my dream was to make a bit of money and have my vineyards and my winery in Tuscany. But I'm not coming from a winemaking family. So Armenia, I started to look around and we are talking beginning of 2000, end of 90s.

[00:14:48] Armenia has been always a wine drinking country. If you look at the history of Armenians, but with the Soviets, Armenians became vodka drinkers. Last year I was going to Armenia, all you could see it was vodka.

[00:15:06] I looked around more, I noticed that we have lots of native varieties that nobody was interested back then. I saw the altitudes that vines were growing in Armenia. So little by little, I started to shift my dream and I said instead of doing it in Tuscany,

[00:15:26] or another county, let's try to do something in Armenia. But there was nothing. I mean, back then they were convinced in Armenia that our soil, our country was good for brandy and not good for wine for no logical reason. And this was imposed by Soviets.

[00:15:54] Soviets designated Armenia as a brandy making country. So for 70 years, Armenians were convinced that our land was perfect for brandy. And I started to talk about, I want to do wine in Armenia with my native varieties.

[00:16:17] They were saying, no, go with the international because at that time that was the movement. Obviously I didn't take that road. And I put even more salt on it, because not only native varieties, I decided to age my wines in our traditional clay jars, amphoras.

[00:16:42] I talked with locals and I started to look all around Armenia from north to south, trying to find a land. And I was flying in from Italy. They were phoning me saying, okay, we got two, three options flying. So I was flying in, looking around.

[00:17:01] I arrived to Vajazzo region, which is now where I have my winery. I bought my land beginning of 2000. My area is a phylloxera free region, so everything is on its own route. So it took us years of years of mass selection, deciding which variety to plant.

[00:17:31] And since the beginning, I've been together with Alberto Antonini. Visiting him didn't take me too long because he came to Armenia. He noticed that there was a treasure, lots of varieties, native varieties that nobody was aware of. Phylloxera free land, high altitude.

[00:17:56] So my winery is on 1400 meters of elevation above sea level. That's 4,600 feet. And I've got also vineyards up to 5,250 feet. So everything was there. And we had our first wine, which was 2010 Harvest. Were there other wineries around that you could learn from? When I started, no.

[00:18:33] There were Soviet times wineries, nothing to learn from. I went to a few wineries back then, but no, nothing to learn. Whatever we did, we did it on our skin. And the progress is very slow, even today. What's the infrastructure for building vineyards in Armenia?

[00:18:56] I mean, are there bulldozers around and people who plant vineyards or how does it work? No. For the plant, I had my viticulturist, Stefano Bartolomei. He's another figure who has been with me from the beginning. He's from Bulgarian region.

[00:19:15] So we had to educate the villagers how to prune. And we were the first one having the single guyo. Our woods are coming from old vines and an abandoned monastery, which is next to us.

[00:19:35] So as a material we have, I always say I will never finish to experiment because there are so many varieties in Armenia. The University of Yerevan is discovering and analyzing and doing the DNA profiles. Now they have arrived under 100 already.

[00:19:57] The DNA profile is done, but they are at the beginning of their job. So hundreds and hundreds to come. So it's a work in progress, very slow, but I think that's the beauty of it. So it's a high active limestone area. It's limestone, sand and clay, right? Yeah.

[00:20:17] So you have a first layer of sand and then underneath full of rocks and limestone. Yeah. Fantastic drainage, high altitude. So we are talking about average during the ripening season is 20 degrees excursion between day and night. That's about 68 Fahrenheit.

[00:20:42] We got very warm days, can arrive to 100 Fahrenheit, 38 degrees. And nighttime, the same night you have like 18 degrees, which is 65 Fahrenheit. So a lot of times when people plant vineyards, they look for lime resistant rootstock if they're going to plant in heavy limestone areas.

[00:21:02] And you guys did own rooted, which means you didn't use rootstock at all. And so what was the result of that? Did you get less berries or different kinds of berries? We just went around, look at the grape, look at the fruit.

[00:21:19] If we like the fruit, we did a knot, we planted. Because RNE has been there forever. RNE, the red grape variety that I'm working with, has been in that area forever. So you have so many different strains of RNE.

[00:21:43] Of course, we have done mistakes and it's a normal thing in my vineyard to replant. So I just keep doing it every year. I have this experimentation. So RNE is three things. RNE is a town in the same general region that you're in.

[00:22:03] RNE is a name of a cave dating back to the Copper Age. And then RNE is the name of a family of grapes in that region. Yeah, we got the village, we got the grape variety and RNE1 cave was named like this. It's a recent discovery.

[00:22:28] 2007, an international expedition has discovered this cave. And with carbon dating, they are confirming that it's a 6,000 year history. 4,000 BC in that area, the inhabitants were making wine and they have found also stems and pips and with analysis, it's confirmed that is the same family of RNE.

[00:22:58] So 6,000 years ago, clay jars were in Armenia and RNE was in Armenia. The same material that I'm using today in my winemaking. But we have other archaeological sites which dates back to 3,000 years ago. That's Urartian kings, Armenian ancestors. This is a discovery, nothing to do with RNE1 cave.

[00:23:28] This is a discovery near the capital city of Armenia, Yerevan, which they have discovered 480 clay pots with the harvest date and the capacity stamped on the clay jars. We are talking about 1,000 BC, 3,000 years ago.

[00:23:53] This is to give you the idea that Armenia is not a country that it's improvising itself to be a winemaking country. Of course, nobody knows Armenia these days and that is because of our tumultuous history

[00:24:07] that we have had and also because of the Soviets, the decision that they have made to designate Armenia as a brandy making. But we have all the necessary tools to make fantastic wines. We have the high altitudes, phylloxera free, our traditional aging vessel.

[00:24:32] What cultures would have made wine in ancient Armenia? Who was there making wine in the RNE cave? Actually the RNE1 cave, the archaeologists are saying that the winery that they have discovered, it was not a winery, just commercial winery.

[00:24:52] It was dedicated to ceremonial winery because with the wine, traces of wine, they have found also human bodies. So it was like a ceremonial kind of winemaking. Talking to my friend, which is the head archaeologist, Boris Kasparian, he is explaining it like

[00:25:22] this, that it's the connection between the other world and this world. This is 4,000 years before Christianity. So this gives also the continuation of the human approach to the wine that it has been always related to the other world. So people were buried with wine? Yeah. I see.

[00:25:50] And mainly young females. It's only 10% of the cave which has been unearthed. So much more surprises is going to come out from that. In the same cave before the winery, they have discovered the oldest shoe in the world, which is dating back to 5,000 years ago.

[00:26:14] There is a lot to be discovered in that cave. So was the idea that people were actually living in the caves at that time? Were they troglodytic? Was that more for burial? So the cave has been lived in several eras. You have different depth of civilizations.

[00:26:37] That cave has been lived also up to Middle Ages. But what the archaeologists are saying that 6,000 years ago, that was a ceremonial place. They were not living there. So they were going there to make these sacrifices and make wine and to make these sacrifices to the other world.

[00:27:00] And that's somewhat near Mount Ararat? On the foothills of Mount Ararat, yeah. But it's not right on Mount Ararat. And to tell you how lucky I am, this discovery is in 2007. I was already there. The beginning of 2000s, I bought the land.

[00:27:23] And it happens to be just in front of my winery. So opening the door of my winery, it has the reflection of the cave. Is the idea that there might be multiple of these? That there might be other caves or other altars where they were giving sacrifices?

[00:27:40] Yeah, yeah. Because Armenia is on the cross of so many civilizations. So yeah, of course, of course. That cave has been discovered. It's really next to the main road. I'm not an archaeologist. But if you look in the mountains, you see so many kind of these caves showing.

[00:28:03] But maybe they are far away and still nobody has discovered. Actually, lately, the same expedition have discovered another kind of winery. But this is a new, they just started working on it. So yeah, there are surprises will come out for sure.

[00:28:21] If you look at the history, lots of civilizations passed there. Armenians were neighbors with Babylonians. Assyrians, which are not existing anymore. And we were known as the land of vineyards. But now if you look at that area is a very isolated area.

[00:28:47] In my region, when they say, is there any other industries or there is no industry in the whole region. People live by agriculture and cattle. All it happens there and is very isolated. Everything has stayed as it is because of isolation.

[00:29:10] One of the things that makes the Ireni I complex so interesting in a wine history is that often when we think about Minoans or Babylonians or Egyptians under King Ramsey or wine made in Sardinia, those dates are in the Bronze Age.

[00:29:28] And the Ireni I complex dates back with wine to the Copper Age. So it predates all of that by about 1000, 1500 years. Yeah. We have pre-Christian Garni, which is a temple. Again they have found clay jars and again there are traces of winemaking.

[00:29:52] When you go that much back, the frontiers that exist today doesn't mean a lot. The great Armenia was at a certain point in the history from one sea to the other between Caspian Sea and the Black Sea. Now we don't have any access to the sea.

[00:30:17] If we move ahead to 300-301 AD, Armenia adopts Christianity and then there's a lot of monasteries. Any monastery you dig in in Armenia, there is amphora coming out or clay jars or a remember of the winemaking culture that has been always in Armenia.

[00:30:40] The first population in the world who has adopted Christianity as a religion for their state. We mentioned the Soviet incursion as kind of a break in winemaking in Armenia, but I would imagine that there was probably breaks before that because you have the Ottomans

[00:30:58] and the Iranians annexing Armenia at different times. In the Western Armenia, which nowadays is Turkey, it was clear the households that were Armenians and the households that were not Armenians because the household of Armenians, they had grapes for wine and the other ones, they had grapes for eating.

[00:31:26] There is a continuation. We have a hundred years gap for the genocide because of Ottoman's genocide and soon after the Soviet rule that they decided the designation of Brandy. If you go further back, you have a whole chain coming to that day that Armenia has been always

[00:31:55] a winemaking country. JS In your region, what would be a normal approach to drinking wine? Unfortunately, lots of tradition has been lost because again the same story we have had this gap in between. During Soviet time, we have lost traditions, but on the tables, of course, Easter time,

[00:32:20] Christmas time, wherever you go, the wine is there. But this is villagers understanding. The wine you make in October, you have to finish it till December. They don't age. By Christmas time, they are finished.

[00:32:40] The wine they make is very basic, rustic, and they mainly drink it with food. And they've got a very strong deviation towards grappa. And then we have the cups, clay cups. People drink out of clay cups? Clay cups, yeah. The wine is mainly drunk by the clay jars.

[00:33:05] And it's mostly based around families dining in their own home? Yeah. My region is really rural. I took some friends and before going, I always said that this is really rural. You have to imagine that where we are going is rural.

[00:33:27] But when they arrived, they said, oh, we never thought it could be this rural. So you're talking about real rural places. Because you arrive to my village and there is no way afterward. The road finishes there. You cannot go anywhere from where I am. No roads.

[00:33:53] Then you have the mountains. What are the wine regions today of Armenia? So Armenia, we got north of Armenia, north of Armenia, bordering Georgia, which they are very good in the white wines. And actually there are also international varieties there. Then we got the Ararat Valley.

[00:34:15] Ararat Valley is where most of the quantity of the grape is produced. During Soviet times, it was all used for brandy making. Then we have my region, Vayotsur, which is in south of Armenia. If you go nationally in Armenia, majority is white.

[00:34:37] But our region is known for red grapes and the white is minority. Today and even before when I arrived, our grapes from our region are double the price of the other grapes in Armenia. Then we have also Artsakh, which is Nagorno-Karabakh.

[00:35:02] And they have lower altitude, but they have also their own grape varieties. Armenia and the Soviet era didn't have the idea of making quality wine. The quantity was the leading logic. But now I'm very glad to say that in Armenia, there is a new wave of winemakers.

[00:35:29] We are trying to do nice things. And I'm very glad also to notice that in today's Armenia, there are new wineries to work with the native varieties. The mentality is shifting. I have two or three friends, wineries, starting to work with the amphoras, clay jars.

[00:35:56] Originally, when you wanted to source amphora, you had to go to many different people and find amphora that they were basically throwing out and then buy them from them. Yeah. When I started to think about aging my wine in the amphoras, I couldn't find any masters

[00:36:16] which were making the amphoras. So till now, I have been obliged to go village to village, knock the doors and see who has amphoras which is not using. And most of the times, I find this fantastic amphoras which the villagers don't know what

[00:36:40] to do because they take a lot of space and they are giving me ultimatum. They say, you take it or we break it because we need these spaces. So most of the times, I'm not even buying them.

[00:36:51] I'm just repairing walls because most of them is in the middle of a room. So they say, it's your job. You just take this amphora away. So my expenses are breaking the walls, taking the amphoras out, saving the amphoras and rebuilding of the wall.

[00:37:10] But now a new project, I've been around in Armenia trying to find masters which are willing to try to reproduce amphoras. I have managed two masters. I have found them. One of them now is in my village.

[00:37:31] We have asked also the permission in our village school to have a classroom. And in the mornings, the master is trying to build the big amphoras. To repair them is difficult, very difficult. And in the afternoon, he's teaching to the children in the school, trying to find the

[00:37:56] next generation of masters. We have also discovered more than eight clay caves in our region, which I've studied them for all the compositions, for the heavy metals and everything to be right for the usage in the winemaking.

[00:38:18] And now we are doing all the blends to make my new amphoras with my clays in Armenia. This is the project. And little by little to have this old amphora just as masterpieces from past. When you went around the different villages of Armenia searching out amphora, did you

[00:38:39] find regional styles? Did you find that the amphora shapes or design or type of clay perhaps that they were different in different places? Yes. During different times, if you go to Ar-Eniwan cave, the composition of clay and the shape

[00:38:57] of the clay is different from the Garbir Blur, which is the 480 clay jars that I was saying. So there are different thickness, different clays, different shapes. And now one of the projects that we are doing with the head archaeologist of the Ar-Eniwan

[00:39:18] cave, we are going to reproduce little by little the same shapes to understand which secret has one, which secret has the next one. So when you've gone around and found amphora, are there features that are on the amphora at different times or different places? Yeah.

[00:39:39] Most of the time we see on different parts of the amphora signs because in Armenia we don't have the practice of putting the whole amphora underneath of the soil. About 20% is out. And if you go to the archaeological site of 3,000 year Urartian kings archaeological site,

[00:40:03] they have the design and the line that demarks the level that it has to go under the soil. And then on top of that, you have the capacity and the harvest here. We have other cases like masters just writing the name of the person.

[00:40:28] They make two red wines and one white wine. What are things that you've learned as you've evolved your technique in the winemaking? We started in a classic way, stainless steel tanks, little barrels and clay jars.

[00:40:47] Not even one harvest, we knew already that stainless steel was not our way. Because after just a few months of having the first harvest in, after tasting the wine in different vessels, the amphora was giving an excellent result with respect to the stainless steel.

[00:41:12] Because the stainless steel is like keeping the wine prisoner, doesn't breathe, doesn't develop. And the barrels don't belong to my region. They are fantastic vessels, but we have the amphoras, which I believe in it. So after first harvest, little by little, I've changed, changed, changed.

[00:41:40] Now only concrete tanks and amphoras. My amphoras that I'm using, they are not even covered or they are rough, tough. You don't line them? We don't lining. I like to mix the new know-how because in my winery, the alcoholic fermentation are made in the latest concrete tanks.

[00:42:08] And then I pass for the aging to my tradition. For our flagship wine, we use only a big botte, which is untoasted. And this aging is mixed with the amphora. The main aging stays in the amphora, but we use the big botte just to give an harmonia

[00:42:32] in the end because this wine has two years of aging in different clay jars with different thickness, different sizes. One wine is more advanced, developed. One wine is behind. So we do the blend and keep it also in this botte to give a harmonia to the wine.

[00:42:55] So I've followed amphora fairly closely for Italian wine production. And one of the things that I noticed is that a grape variety like Robola Giallo, which is a white grape, which has very thick skins and a lot of acidity, tends to do quite well in amphora.

[00:43:13] Whereas a grape variety like Chardonnay, which has skins that are not as thick and is less acidic as a grape variety than Robola Giallo, seems to make somewhat uninteresting wine out of amphora.

[00:43:26] And so when I find out that Areni has thick skins and tends towards high acidity, especially in that climate, especially when it's planted in limestone, that would make sense to me as a wine that might work well in amphora. Yeah.

[00:43:41] Areni Noir, which is the red grape variety, because of high altitude, because of this violent excursion we have day and night, it has a high acidity and it has a thick skin.

[00:43:58] To me, Areni as a taste, as a character, as a variety, it has so much to say that you don't need vanilla there. I want my territory to talk. I want my terroir to be the protagonista.

[00:44:17] The only Areni I've had have been from your winery and I've only tried your red wines a handful of times. So I have limited experience. But it seems to me that Areni has a few things going on.

[00:44:30] One is like a real grapey kind of vivacity, a lot of lift, the real freshness, but at the same time, a kind of almost a wildness, a little bit of a foxiness that needs to be tamed.

[00:44:45] So that second part's kind of more like a Saperavi, but that first part would be more akin to like a very fresh Gamay. Those both exist in the same wine. So is that typical of that grape or how do you see it?

[00:45:05] I would put it in another way. It has fantastic flavors, but some grape varieties don't have the same structure that Areni has. Areni has both in one grape. Our part has to be there to find the right balance.

[00:45:24] If the grape is good, you've got a good wine aged in the amphora. That's a wine that is vertical in the mouth. So in terms of grape material, you really have two different kinds of Areni.

[00:45:38] You have the Areni where you've planted it with Stefano Bartolome, where you took the cuttings from old vines and you put them on trellises on Singo Ghio and they're young vines. And then you also have a parcel that you found that's a particularly high elevation vine

[00:45:54] material that are at least 100 years old and that probably went wild at some point and that you're kind of re-cultivating. Yeah, we have discovered this site which is, I mean, call it even a vineyard, it's not even a vineyard because it's like a jungle.

[00:46:20] It has been always there with nobody to care and strange enough, with no water, no nothing, it has survived. We make a wine only from this batch. We do only 4,000 bottles. There is no material.

[00:46:45] But its ripening season is already long because for the vineyard that I planted, the harvest time is middle of October. At 1,400 meters, which is 4,600 feet, we do the harvest. For the vines that are ultra-centennial, that are on 5,250 feet, we go to end of October.

[00:47:10] To arrive to the 1,600 meters, the higher elevation vineyard, there is no roads. It's like a safari. The logistic is so you do like half an hour in the mountains, bears, snakes, you have everything. It's full nature over there.

[00:47:33] To convince people to go up there to do the harvest is a challenge. Why do you think that the vineyard parcels were so much in the mountain forests like that? What do you think the history of that parcel is that it's so far off the grid?

[00:47:53] Armenia has always been land of invasions. We have had so many invasions. If you look at the history, we have been always on the borders of big empires. My conviction is that these lands were hidden just in case if everything goes wrong, we have these vineyards.

[00:48:18] In the peacetime, I think it was just abandoned. According to the head archeologist, there are mysteries of, okay, we got the 480 amphoras, but we still don't know where the vineyards were. Because to have 480 big amphoras 3,000 years ago, that is industrial production.

[00:48:46] A vine where it's gone wild and then come back into cultivation versus a young vine, but it's in the same grape family. When you hold the grapes in your hand, what do they look like?

[00:49:00] You see the concentration even before tasting them in your hand when you touch them. You see these big bushes, but maybe you have to find the grape because there is not a lot. And small berries compared with the young vines.

[00:49:25] So what is striking me is the concentration in this and the small berries. Ironies are so vigorous variety. So for the white grapes, you originally started with six and now you're working with two,

[00:49:46] but it sounds like you're doing some work to identify which exactly you want to work with in the future. I started with eight varieties. I just pick eight by luck. So it was not because there were eight varieties.

[00:50:02] I just decided to work with these eight varieties because at a certain point you have to do things because if no, you don't go forward. So by cutting them out, we arrived to the mix of 50-50 of the Voskhehat and Garandemag,

[00:50:17] which are the two varieties now that I'm using. What I know for sure are any grape that I am working. It's a kind of grape that if you take it out from Vayodzor region, which is a small region, taking it to Ararat Valley, it changes completely.

[00:50:42] Doesn't give the same quality fruit as it gives in Vayodzor region. So it's a very tricky grape variety. But with the white Voskhehat and Garandemag, these grapes are more flexible and you can find in other regions. And 50-50 for me is the right balance.

[00:51:13] The white is made and aged in concrete tanks. What do you see as the future of Armenia as a country, apart from the wine side? What are the forces that are going to shape Armenia in the next 5-10 years?

[00:51:28] Armenia is a fantastic country, but it's a new republic. We are the autochtonous people of that area, but as a republic, it's after Soviets. It's 25 years republic, so lots of problems with the infrastructures, lots of other problems.

[00:51:50] The strongest point that Armenians have is the Armenian diaspora around the world. We are only not even 3 million in Armenia, but we are more than 7 million outside of Armenia. So there are lots of Armenians in diaspora that are trying to do something in Armenia

[00:52:13] with the experiences they have in their countries, come to Armenia to do something for the good of the country. If the country stays in peace, which I hope from the bottom of my heart because Armenia deserves it, if we have a peaceful country, we have a great future.

[00:52:37] If you could go back and tell yourself about this Armenian wine project that you started, if you could talk to the earlier you and kind of give yourself some pointers, I mean what didn't happen the way you thought?

[00:52:49] First of all, when I look back, I get really scared because I say I was really naive because I didn't calculate nothing. I just had this idea in my mind, Sunday evening thinking about making wine and then the next day you wake up and you start.

[00:53:13] And with all the difficulties, the difficulties have been so many. It has been a very difficult but very fantastic journey because it has opened a new chapter in my life to decide to do in Armenia wine is like a new life living.

[00:53:38] Doing things differently, I don't believe of doing things differently because you can never go back. What you have done, you have done. Mistakes that I've done, millions. But in my opinion, whatever happens to you, even if it's whatever negative things can

[00:53:59] happen to you, there is always a positive point. You have to take the positive point of your bad experience and to not repeat it again. I've had so many delusions, so many… I've had like seven, eight years without knowing. For me it was without knowing what was happening.

[00:54:22] At a certain point after seven, eight years of investment without having even one bottle, there were moments that I was saying, am I doing the right thing? Shall I go forward? Shall I not go forward? But it was just a split second, the decision was made forward.

[00:54:42] Few years ago my children were asking, now they are not asking anymore, they are bigger. They were asking, dad what are you doing in Armenia? What I have achieved till today, I haven't achieved a lot but what I've achieved till today, it's an opening door.

[00:55:01] I hope that they will continue. If they decide to continue what I'm doing, they will do it in a different way but I'm very happy. Adamus Suleymaneux Are there plans that you have in the next few years?

[00:55:17] Yeah, I keep buying small plots because as I say it's a hidden treasure. Nobody knows what's happening there. One thing is worrying me a lot that there are so many varieties that they are fantastic but they are in verge of extinction.

[00:55:40] I'm also in touch with the University of Yerevan with the DNA profiles and now I hope they will take it to the next level, replantation of these varieties that we are losing.

[00:55:58] So it's so many things that we have to do in Armenia but we do it step by step. It's a beginning and I hope the next generation will follow. I hope first that Armenia will have peace and we will have the possibility to unearth

[00:56:19] all our treasures that we have in the winemaking. Zohar Garibian woke up one day with the idea to start a winery in Armenia. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you Levi. Zohar Garibian of the Zora Winery in Armenia.

[00:56:35] All Drink to That is hosted and produced by myself, Levi Dalton. Aaron Scala has contributed original pieces. Editorial assistance has been provided by Bill Kimsey. The show music was performed and composed by Rob Moose and Thomas Bartlett. Show artwork by Alicia Tanoian.

[00:56:53] T-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs and so much more including show stickers, notebooks and even gift wrap are available for sale if you check the show website alldrinktothatpod.com that's I-L-L drink to that P-O-D dot com which is the same place you'd go to sign up for

[00:57:09] our email list or to make one of the crucially important donations that help keep this show operating. You can donate from anywhere using PayPal or Stripe on the show website. Remember to hit subscribe or to follow this show in your favorite podcast app please.

[00:57:25] That's super important to see every episode and thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to this episode. I want to take a moment to point out something important which is that I am not a trained

[00:57:53] historian and neither was my guest for this episode and I say this because the history of Armenia is complicated and nuanced and quite long and there are several different geographic areas that had the name Armenia in them at one time and we spoke about the

[00:58:10] history of Armenia in this episode but please view that as an invitation to do more study of that history on your own and not as a substitute for that kind of historical study.

[00:58:22] Today if I live till 500 years of age, I will not be able to achieve what I have in my mind in Armenia because every day there you see things, you touch things that you say oh I

[00:58:39] can also do this or I can also do that but on the other hand I have to be more concentrated because if you have too many ideas going all together you don't achieve anything.