WTN: Trip to Armenia

[Jenise]

Celebrating the recognition of the atrocities committed against the Armenian people earlier last century, we tasted through four impressive new Armenian releases last night:


NV Keush Origins Méthode Traditionelle Brut Armenia White Blend
A 60/40 blend of Voskehat and Khatouni grapes grown in limestone and volcanic rock soils, this non-vintage bubbler clocks in at just 12%. Flavors are closer to Cava than Champagne; very fresh apple and white melon fruit on the palate with a bitter almond finish. The limestone shows. Excellent.

2019 Zulal Voskehat Aghavnadzor Vayots Dzor
Very fresh with surprising viscosity for a low alcohol (13% per the label, and the taste bears that out) wine. Very different from the '17 Zorah Voskehat (my only other reference point for this grape) that was chablis-like, this is closer to French Colombard with a nose of clean laundry and vegetal flavors on the palate like lettuce and salted raw green beans. Would be a great salad wine. MSRP about $19.

2018 Zulal Areni Vayots Dzor
Lighter-bodied but in all the good ways: bright cherry and cranberry fruit, refreshing acidity, cassia bark, juniper berries. Liked it a lot. An early drinker and good deal at $19.

2018 Zulal Areni Reserve Vayots Dzor
Tasted side-by-side with Zulal's 2018 regular above. Not sure precisely what the qualifications are for 'Reserve' status, but it tastes like more new oak and probably more barrel time, adding body and elegance to the cherries and spice and turning the cranberry notes into pomegranate. Delightful, and a bargain for around $30.

[David M. Bueker]

I would not know where to look for Armenian wines. Does that make me a turkey?

Ba-da-bum...

[Jenise]

We didn't find them, they found us. But that said, look for them next time you're in Glendale, California (Little Armenia).

Celebrating the recognition of the atrocities committed against the Armenian people earlier this century

Although Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have suffered recently, I think you probably mean last century.

Armenian wines are quite difficult to find in the UK, with the exception of Zorah's Karasì Areni Noir. It's a good wine, but not particularly cheap so I would not go out of my way to buy it. I would however like to further explore Armenian wines

I did find a particularly good one in a local Armenian restaurant, for £50 - good value considering normal restaurant mark-ups - Voskevaz, Karasi Collection, Voskehat, Vieilles Vignes, dry white wine, 2015. My TN was quite brief, perhaps because I was too busy enjoying it - Intense, rich, slightly petroly, complex. Very slightly astringent. My enthusiasm is really only communicated by my highest-possible rating.

We also had the Areni Noir 2015 in the Karasi Collection at the same time - it was good too, but not in the same class of excellence IMO.

[Jenise]

Steve, delighted to talk to someone who has at least experienced Armenian wine. And thanks, you're right, LAST century. At the time circa 1982 that I heard first-hand accounts from a friend's father who watched his entire family murdered when he was just six years old, it was "this" century and in I hadn't updated my perspective.

I still have two bottles of the chablis-ish '17 Zorah Voskehat I referred to above. I did buy those locally a few years back but our retail system isn't very deep up here and they've not been seen again. This lot came to a wine-blogger friend, gratis for the asking. I told her, ASK! For reference, I paid $33-35 ea for the Zorahs here.

I find Areni particularly compelling.

Yes, some horrific stuff happening in the region, and the Armenian Genocide was the worst in last hundred years or so. On a recent flight to Georgia I was chatting to a young woman who as a child had to flee a breakaway part of Georgia as the Russian military joined forces with local separatists, invading internationally recognised Georgian territory. Not many deaths relatively speaking, but a whole lot of human misery. That would have been in the early 1990s. It helps put our western political crises into perspective!

The Zorah Areni Noir is about the same here I guess - just under £30 retail. It is very difficult to get a good feel for a country's wine when one gets to taste so few examples.

Even "my" Armenian restaurant sells mainly international wines, with a few from neighbouring Georgia. From chatting to the owner I got the impression the Voskevaz wines were a one-off batch. He said they were not marked-up as much as his others as he wanted to show them off, but they were still his most expensive wines - it is not a fancy place.

[Jenise]

I need to look at wine lists for Armenian restaurants in So Cal and see what producers they carry. It will probably give me an idea of the breadth of what's available here. We have a small mediterranean market here in town that makes a point of carrying wines from that general part of the world which I gaze at on my rare visits there, but mostly they're Greek, some Lebanese and so forth. They even have Musar which I'd buy if the storage conditions weren't so dicey.