On December 17, the Vine and Wine Foundation of Armenia has held a “blind testing” of 134 Armenian wines. Led by five independent experts with years of experience in wine assessment, representatives of 34 companies participating in the competition tasted and evaluated each wine.

The contestants had 8 hours to taste and about 3-5 minutes to evaluate the wines, which were served with covered labels.

The event was organized in cooperation with the German International Cooperation Agency (GIZ).

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Sirvard Amatuni (GIZ) | Image by: Mediamax

The competition aims to develop mechanisms for quality control over Armenian wines, which will allow the industry to set new quality standards for top Armenian wines.

Executive Director of the Vine and Wine Foundation Zaruhi Muradyan has told GastroVino about the goals of the tasting competition and the programs implemented in parallel.

The blind tasting

We have been trying to organize tastings in Armenia, invite experts from abroad for impartiality and transparency for years. They often responded that it was difficult to evaluate because they were unfamiliar with terroir, varieties, style of Armenian wine. We realized that no one could evaluate our wine better than us, and to be impartial, we decided it was the producers who should do the evaluation. The participants did not know in advance what wine they would taste, and the competition was organized as simply and transparently as possible.

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Zaruhi Muradyan | Image by: Mediamax

Two days after the blind testing, independent experts will evaluate all the participating wines. We will compare their assessments with the opinions of the experts from wine companies to understand how professional our panel is. If our experts’ evaluation turns out incorrect, that will tell us we are not ready to present in this format yet.

“Wines of Armenia” and the common warehouse

The organizers see creating “Wines of Armenia” brand as the goals of this competition. Wines that have earned 86 and more points will be presented in the global market under that brand.

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Image by: Mediamax

We have told the panel participants to think before tasting whether they want that particular wine to bear the “Wines of Armenia” brand or not.

At the same time, we are taking some action in Europe: creating an online platform, preparing to rent a warehouse where to store wines. After the tasting competition and the classification of the wines, we will have an understanding of which ones (and in what quantity) we should send to the common warehouse.

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Image by: Mediamax

This way, Armenian wines will be more available in Europe. We also try to connect buyers with manufacturers without intermediaries and enable manufacturers to communicate with buyers, understand requirements, sales volumes. When importing companies sell wines, the producer sometimes does not even know in which cities the wine is consumed. This way, we will be able to follow the sales as well.

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Image by: Mediamax

The warehouse will allow us to have the wines available not only for sale, but also for sampling. It is very convenient, because when the manufacturer acquires a new partner, it is rather expensive and time-consuming to send the sample from Armenia. If we succeed, we can present ourselves on similar platforms in China, the USA and other countries.

Establishing a wine association

The Vine and Wine Foundation of Armenia has united wine companies, but I think there should be a strong, independent structure in the field, represented by an association. There are similar associations in all wine-making countries, which are the owners of their field. This is a great opportunity and now we are taking the first steps in that direction.

The “Wines of Armenia”Association will be responsible for organizing and implementing tasting competitions in the future.

Ani Khchoyan
Photos: Emin Aristakesyan