back in June 2012<\/a>, and was impressed. I\u2019m even more impressed with this, the 2011. And in two months the 2012 will be released, and from the chat I had today with owner\/founder Zorik Gharibian and his wife Yeraz Tomassians (pictured above), I think I\u2019ll like that even better.<\/p>\n![\"zorah](\"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/P1220292-001.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
The story is a great one. Gharibian, a fashion guy from Milan, had a vineyard fantasy. He thought about Italy, but then realized it would be far cooler (and more challenging) to go back to his ancestral land, Armenia, to do the vineyard fantasy. He took his time, did his research, and then found the perfect spot: virgin land near the small rural village of Rind in the heart of Vayotz Dzor, the top wine region in the country. The site is at 1400 m surrounded by mountains, and Gharibian planted 15 hectares of vines from cuttings of old vine Areni Noir, the top native red variety. Assisted by consultant winemaker Alberto Antonini, the first wine was made in 2010, using a mixture of stainless steel, barrels, concrete fermenters and a few amphorae. <\/p>\n
With the 2012, Gharibian is changing the style a little. \u2018We want the full terroir to speak,\u2019 he says. To this end, he\u2019s moving away from stainless steel and small barrels towards concrete and large Slavonian casks. Of the 2012, Gharibian thinks it\u2019s better than the 2011. <\/p>\n
But there are more exciting developments. \u2018I have found a semi-abandoned vineyard at 1650 metres, 250 metres higher than this one,\u2019 he says. \u2018The vines are centuries old, with huge trunks.\u2019 He adds that, \u2018the hardest part is to get there.\u2019 From these ancient vines of Areni Noir, he has made a new wine, beginning in 2012, which will be released \u2013 if all goes to plan \u2013 next year. \u2018It has more minerality, more spices and more herbs,\u2019 he says of this developing wine.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also been working with white indigenous varieties that he\u2019s been able to identify. \u2018We started with 10 and have now narrowed this down to four.\u2019 The wine from this project might be released in 2016 if things progress as planned. \u2018It goes on a slow pace,\u2019 says Gharibian. \u2018All we have to look to is the 6000 year old cave next to us,\u2019 he says, referring to the Areni 1 archaeological site which is the oldest evidence of human commercial winemaking activity yet found.<\/p>\n
Zorah Karasi Areni Noir 2011 Armenia
\n<\/strong>Very fresh, bright, vivid and pure with good acidity and fine, expressive cherry and red berry fruit. Supple and fine, this has sweet fruit but it is fresh and structured with lovely purity. Such a stylish wine showing great definition. 93\/100 (RRP \u00a322.99 UK agent Liberty Wines)<\/p>\nFind this wine with wine-searcher.com<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the most interesting encounters I had at today\u2019s Liberty Wine tasting was with Armenia, the land-locked country hemmed in by Georgia, Ajerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. This broader area…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[206],"class_list":["post-8974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-armenia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8977,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8974\/revisions\/8977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"zorik](\"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/P1220293-001.jpg\")
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