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Zorah Wine's vineyard in Rind, Armenia

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  • Zorah Wine's vineyard in Rind, Armenia

    Zorah Wine's vineyard in Rind, Armenia

    Friday, August 1st, 2014 | Posted by Contributor

    Armenia Fund: In Vino Veritas


    Armenia Fund continues its new series on welcome developments in
    Armenia, including Artsakh. For over two decades, the Fund has been
    doing humanitarian work throughout Armenia and this series is a
    showcase of encouraging initiatives, some that are a direct result of
    Armenia Fund's work and some that are the product of innovation and
    pure determination.

    Pliny the Elder was convinced that in wine, there is truth -- in vino
    veritas. His early adage about the drink has been followed by
    thousands more seeking to succinctly express its mystical properties.
    Whatever the motivation behind the millennia-long enchantment with
    wine, it has returned to Armenia.

    Zorik Gharibian is a fashion mogul in Italy. You might even have
    bought clothing in Los Angeles manufactured by his company without
    knowing it. Growing up in the wine-obsessed culture of Italy, he
    dreamed of one day tending to his own vines in the country's famed
    Tuscany region. Until he visited Armenia, that is.

    Zorik Gharibian

    After running soil tests at university laboratories in Italy,
    Gharibian was assured that the traditional winemaking area of Vayots
    Dzor in southern Armenia would be the ideal place for his vineyards.
    He chose Rind as the center of his operations, not far from Areni,
    where the world's oldest winery was discovered.

    Karas, in Armenian, translates to amphora, the clay jars in which wine
    was aged for thousands of years before the advent of wood barrel
    aging. These are the jars that were found at the ancient winery in
    Areni. Karasi is the name of Gharibian's most famous production thus
    far. Listed among bottles of wine costing thousands or tens of
    thousands of dollars, it was chosen as a top 10 wine by Bloomberg from
    a field of over 4,000 wines.

    Besides being just a name that honors a method of winemaking used in
    the ancient world, Karasi is actually aged in amphora. Gharibian
    recognizes that employing these disused clay jars is not easy: "We of
    course have trouble finding amphora [to use in our wine production]
    because unfortunately there is no longer amphora production in
    Armenia," says Gharibian. The ones used by Zorah Wines - the name of
    his winery - were bought, piece by piece, by visiting the homes of
    local villagers.

    Not one to be discouraged, Gharibian plans to establish a school in
    Rind where the art of making amphora will be revived by a new
    generation of expert artisans. Serendipitously, his wife, Yeraz
    Tovmasyan, is an expert ceramicist whose skills will be put to good
    use when the school opens.

    If it wasn't already obvious, Gharibian insists on originality and
    that goes for the grapes he uses in his wines. While most people had
    dismissed areni as a good enough grape to be used in quality
    winemaking, the ambitious entrepreneur did his research and found
    strains of areni that he says "can compete with any grape variety in
    the world." He believes that by embracing and promoting indigenous
    Armenian grape varieties - as opposed to imported foreign ones like
    cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir - those grapes will become as well
    known, putting Armenia on the wine world's map.

    Wine in traditional amphora at Zorah Wines

    Tenaciously pursuing his goal of making Armenia a global player in the
    wine market, Gharibian says that in 2016, Zorah will release a red
    wine better than Karasi, the one that was listed in Bloomberg's top
    ten. Asked where he gets his inspiration, he references Armenia's
    6,100-year winemaking tradition that is apparent throughout Armenian
    culture from social customs to stone carvings.

    For Zorik Gharibian, winemaking is not a business so much as it is a
    labor of love. It would seem then that Pliny the Elder was right. It
    was in wine that Gharibian found the truth that his passion belongs in
    one place: Armenia.


    http://asbarez.com/125581/armenia-fund-in-vino-veritas/


    From: Baghdasarian
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