Armenian Growers Rebuild a Wine Tradition on Mountain Slopes

In the mountains of southern Armenia, grape growers are rebuilding a wine industry that was nearly erased in the Soviet era while trying to protect the land that sustains it.

At Trinity Canyon Vineyards in Vayots Dzor province, rows of vines climb natural plateaus at about 1,300 meters, or roughly 4,300 feet, above sea level. The site sits in a region where winters are severe, summers are hot and the terrain is too rocky for easy terracing. Farmers here have turned to what they call vertical viticulture, planting grapes on steep mountain slopes and elevated flats rather than on broad horizontal fields.

The effort is part of a wider push across Armenia to restore a winemaking tradition that dates back about 6,000 years. Archaeologists uncovered an ancient winery in a cave complex in Vayots Dzor in 2007 and dated it to around 4000 B.C., making it one of the oldest known wineries in the world. But during the Soviet period, Armenian viticulture was sharply reduced as brandy production took priority and many wine grape varieties disappeared from the country.

Now producers, researchers and industry groups are trying to rebuild what was lost. They are planting vineyards at higher elevations, reviving native grape varieties and using farming methods meant to reduce harm to soil and nearby ecosystems. Some growers use cover crops instead of synthetic fertilizer to restore nitrogen in depleted soil. Others avoid pesticides and herbicides, relying on organic practices even when they do not seek formal certification.

Artem Parseghyan, the head winemaker at Trinity Canyon, said the winery has continued to farm organically even after letting its certification lapse because of the cost and paperwork involved in annual renewal. He said the vineyard uses cover crops to improve soil composition and protect biodiversity. He also said that because neighboring farms may use chemicals, the outer rows of vines along property lines are treated as a buffer zone and handled separately at harvest.

“Organic is not marketing for us,” Parseghyan said. “Before getting the certificate and up till now, we do everything in organic standards.”

The revival has come with new scientific work. At the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, researchers have been collecting and sequencing native grape samples since 2012 to understand how local varieties might withstand climate change. Kristine Margaryan, who heads the laboratory of plant genomics there, said her team has gathered more than 3,400 samples despite limited genetic resources.

She said much of the country’s grape collection had vanished after the collapse of the Soviet Union, forcing researchers to reconstruct it from historical botanical records and fieldwork across Armenia. The goal is not only preservation but also adaptation. Margaryan said temperatures in Vayots Dzor have risen by about 1.3 degrees Celsius to 1.4 degrees Celsius over the past century, or roughly 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit to 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

If warming continues, she said, vineyards may need to move higher into the mountains. To test that possibility, her team helped establish Armenia’s first high-altitude vineyard at 2,080 meters, or about 6,824 feet. In those trials, many local Armenian varieties performed well while several Western European varieties did not.

Margaryan said researchers now want to understand why native grapes appear better suited to those conditions and how their genes respond to altitude and stress.

Climate change is not the only threat facing Armenian wine growers. Phylloxera, an invasive insect that attacks grapevine roots and foliage, remains a concern for vineyards worldwide. Zaruhi Muradyan, chief executive of the Vine and Wine Foundation of Armenia and founder of the EVN Wine Academy, said growers need better tools to extend vineyard life through irrigation choices, air circulation and other management methods.

She said larger wineries have increasingly begun planting their own vineyards so they can control quality and reduce dependence on outside suppliers. She also pointed to another bottleneck: a shortage of karas, the clay amphorae used for fermenting and storing wine that are central to Armenian winemaking tradition.

Muradyan said a school dedicated to making karas could help preserve that craft while also drawing visitors interested in wine tourism and traditional pottery techniques.

The industry’s revival has become tied not only to heritage but also to land use and conservation. Muradyan said some wineries are beginning to map vineyards more precisely so investors can better understand where grapes are grown, which varieties are planted and what environmental pressures surround each site.

“Winemaking has a long history in Armenia,” she said. “Yet it requires tremendous work.”