The Wine Factory of Areni

The village of Areni is famous not only for its beautiful church, with its most ancient shoe and wine-press ever found in the world: it is the “Wine capital” of Armenia. Almost all the families in Areni are involved in winemaking. Every year in October the traditional wine festival is held here. The culture of winemaking has the history of thousands of years in Areni. The witness of it is the oldest wine-press in the world, which was found not far from the village and has more than six thousand years of age. It is a proven fact that during thousands of years the Areni type of grape has been growing in this region. The Areni type of grape has a specific consistency: there is required quantity and proportion of wine creating elements, which makes it possible to get an excellent range of wines of this quality. And it's mainly due to the grape variety, as well to the unique climate of Vayotz Dzor. Semi-sweet, semi-dry and dry wines as well as wines of pomegranate, apricot, peach, apple, blackberry, cherry, raspberry and the like are made here. There fruit wines are hardly taken to the markets. For they are mostly bought by the tourists just on the spot. The factory is small. The grape purveyance only constitutes 300 tons a year. Despite the small scales of the production, 40% of production of the wine factory of Areni is exported.