In the Mountains of Karabakh

A war-ravaged former Soviet region tries to recover its winemaking
roots

By Matt Kettmann
>From Wine Spectator magazine, June 15, 2005 issue

A skinny sprig of Khindogny grapevine, freshly plucked from warm and
nourishing soil, is clinging to life on a short knob of rootstock.
The sprig, growing inside a dark barn where the smoky air is pierced
by rays of light shining through walls riddled with bullet holes,
symbolizes hope for the future of the isolated and war-torn region
known as Nagorno-Karabakh.

Stuck in geographic and political limbo between Christian Armenia and
Muslim Azerbaijan, Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population is trying
to revitalize the ancient traditions of winemaking that were almost
destroyed by a bloody war for independence from Azerbaijan in the
early 1990s.

As he spins the sprig of Khindogny, a variety traditional to the high
southern Caucasus Mountains, Vladimir Zakiyan’s eyes well up with
tears. He speaks in a village called Kheramot, which was destroyed
during the war and occupied by Azeri soldiers for nearly two years
before being liberated by Karabakhi troops. “We started from zero,”
says Zakiyan. “This village lost 31 young men and had a lot of people
injured. It was destroyed to the ground. … We started to rebuild
our lives. Everybody can destroy, but not everybody can rebuild.”

Inside the formerly bombed-out barn in Kheramot, where wood fires keep
the temperature warm to accommodate early vine sprouting, Zakiyan shows
how the Karabakh grape shoots are being spliced onto rootstocks from
the United States that are resistant to phylloxera. The voracious
root louse has recently devastated native Karabakh grapevines and
threatens to eliminate entire strains of endemic grape varieties.

But the young vine represents a collaboration-of foreign aid and
local perseverance-that could eventually put the region back on the
world wine map. The boisterous in-country director of the Fresno,
Calif.-based nonprofit Armenian Technology Group (ATG), Zakiyan
is aware that the struggle has just begun. “It’s not a time to be
proud,” he reminds the local villagers. “Our reconstruction is still
in progress. But maybe in some time, we’ll be proud.”

But pride is strong among Armenians, an ancient people who, in the
early part of the fourth century, became one of the first to proclaim
Christianity as a national religion. An Armenian tale recounts how
the biblical Noah walked down from the slopes of nearby Mount Ararat,
where the Ark had come to a rest after the Great Flood, and ventured
into what is today Armenia, where he planted the seed of the world’s
first vineyard. In so doing, he established the lands between the
Black and Caspian seas as a winemaking epicenter.

One of the region’s viticultural fonts is called Artsakh by the
Armenians, who have populated its remote, mountainous terrain for
the past two millennia. Situated in the misty mountains of the South
Caucasus, Artsakh is an ancient place of both natural beauty and almost
constant war. Farmers of this bucolic enclave became adept at growing
high altitude-friendly varieties in fertile soils at some 3,600 feet.

Local lore has it that the people of Artsakh-benefiting from a climate
cooler, wetter and more variable than that of their more arid lowland
neighbors-were known to produce the best fermented grape juice around
and to keep barrels and jugs full even during the repeated invasions
of Turks, Mongols, Persians and Russians.

In the 1920s, the Soviets took control. The mostly Armenian
Artsakh-officially renamed Nagorno-Karabakh, which translates to
“mountainous black garden”-was separated from Armenia as a result of
Stalin’s machinations, becoming part of Azerbaijan. In the following
decades, grapes from the mountainside vineyards of Karabakh supplied
the Soviet Union with red wine and brandy. Eventually, 14 wineries
made wine from the 200,000 tons of grapes harvested annually.

All of that changed in 1991. With the Soviet Union in its death
throes, the mostly Armenian population of Karabakh voted to become
independent. War between Azerbaijan and Karabakh (backed militarily
by Armenia) quickly ensued. For three years, the battles raged,
killing close to 30,000 soldiers and civilians and ravaging the
countryside. Agricultural fields, including acre upon acre of
grapevines, were destroyed or left unusable due to unexploded ordnance
and mines.

Though 1994 brought a cease-fire, it did not bring closure. The war
is officially unresolved, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic sits in
international limbo as diplomatic talks continue. Following the war,
the economy collapsed. It looked as if one of the world’s first major
winemaking regions was lost forever, a doom hastened by the onset of
phylloxera in the late ’90s, which nearly finished the job the war
had begun.

But Armenian pride wouldn’t let that happen. Today, as the future of
Karabakh is debated by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan as well
as ambassadors from the United States, France and Russia, grapevines
are growing once again.

The road to Karabakh’s wine country mirrors the reality faced by the
struggling republic: It’s uphill and rocky once you leave Stepanakert,
the slow-paced capital of Karabakh. It traverses a breathtaking
landscape whose features range from snowcapped peaks to rolling
pastures in luminous shades of green. It can be hard to remember
that one wrong step could prove deadly, inasmuch as many meadows are
minefields and the seemingly quiet villages are littered with shrapnel.

About an hour’s drive from Stepanakert, the road passes the relatively
bustling town of Karmir Shuka, which means “red market” in Armenian. At
one end of town stands an impressive steel gate adorned with an
oversize cast-iron cluster of purple grapes. How fitting: It’s the
entryway to the wine- and spirit- processing plant owned and operated
by Karabakh Gold, one of only two alcohol-producing companies still
operating today.

This gritty factory is no wine boutique, and visitors-especially
non-Armenians-are few. Yet the workers proudly relate the history of
the factory, which was founded in 1927 to process mulberry wine (a
celebrated elixir in the region) and was operational as a producer of
various spirits, wines and brandies until the war began. It reopened
after the 1994 cease-fire and managed to maintain production until
1998, when the postwar economy faltered and phylloxera hit.

This downward spiral speaks to the dramatic decline of grapegrowing in
the entire region over the last two decades. In the 1980s, Karabakh
had more than 42,000 acres of vineyards. Today, the total acreage
under vine is less than 3,000, and grape harvests are down to less
than 5,000 tons.

In 2002, Karabakh Gold’s investors purchased the factory and took
advantage of the new government’s economic policies, which provide
investment incentives and tax breaks as the means of invigorating
a stagnant economy still under blockade from both Turkey and
Azerbaijan. Production started again after extensive repairs, with 400
tons of grapes-namely a white Georgian variety called Rkatsiteli and
the domestic red grape Khindogny-collected from neighboring villages.

In 2003, the company began cultivating wheat to make vodka, which now
constitutes most of Karabakh Gold’s output, and expanded production
to include pomegranate wine, blackberry wine and the traditional
mulberry blend. Most promising was Karabakh Gold’s signing in 2003
of a contract to sell grapes to the Yerevan Brandy Company, which is
owned by the large French firm Pernod Ricard.

The new bottling plant for Karabakh Gold is a few dozen miles away
in Martouni, separated from that district’s war-ravaged capital
of the same name by a large minefield. Inside, the very busy Vladik
Alibabyan-who graduated nearly 20 years ago from Yerevan’s Agricultural
Academy with a specialty in winemaking-plays consummate deal maker,
constantly barking orders to his various assistants and jabbering on
his cell phone.

Between sips of the semisweet white Rkatsiteli and of the dry, jammy
red Khindogny, which he prefers with barbecue, Alibabyan explains that
last year, only 3,000 tons of grapes were processed by Karabakh Gold,
but the goal is to reach 20,000 tons soon.

“We aren’t being controlled by the number of grapes,” he explains,
visibly frustrated that he sells exponentially more vodka than fine
wine. “It’s the market demand.” But with the involvement of Pernod
and the marketing potential of the rare and tasty Khindogny grape,
Alibabyan is confident that the balance will shift.

Karabakh’s only other winemaker represents the sort of collaboration
that could lift the region out of its current depression. It’s a
partnership between the Karabakhi-owned company Artsakh Alco and
Zakiyan’s California-based ATG. Artsakh Alco is headquartered
just a few miles east of Stepanakert in the town of Askeran, a
community framed by an ancient fortress that has repelled numerous
invasions-including Azeri advances in the most recent war-and survives
as a symbol of Karabakh’s strength.

Like Karabakh Gold’s factory, Artsakh Alco’s facilities-initially
constructed in Stalin’s era and rebuilt around 2000, with production
beginning in 2001-aren’t finely polished. Yet the science of wine is
taken seriously here, where lab coat-wearing technicians work under
the watchful eye of winemaker Karian Akopian. She, like Karabakh
Gold’s Alibabyan, graduated from the Agricultural Academy in Yerevan,
the capital of Armenia.

Artsakh Alco makes a variety of alcohols, but Akopian, like Zakiyan,
is most interested in making quality wines. When provoked, they each
rattle off an impressive list of traditional Karabakh grape varieties,
ranging from Khindogny to Haghtanak, a red whose name translates to
“victory,” and Kagun, a white. Artsakh Alco does not make any sweet
wines, both in deference to Akopian’s tastes and because they don’t
sell well.

During the war, the front lines were little more than a mile away, and
Askeran was regularly shelled. The oak barrel-making factory next to
the Artsakh Alco plant was a tank-repair warehouse, so it’s no wonder
that hollowed husks of Russian tanks still sit behind the property. But
these days, the imported technology on the premises consists of Italian
bottling equipment, German hardware and French filters, all acquired
in the company’s determined attempt to produce the best Karabakh wines.

East from Askeran, toward the current front lines, where sniper
fire is often exchanged between young Azeri and Karabakhi troops,
Zakiyan-flamboyant in a bright yellow shirt and grape-cluster bolero
in a land stylistically dominated by plain black suits-oversees ATG’s
grapegrowing operations in Kheramot.

These young vines are then sold at half-price to villagers-around
50,000 were sold last year-or planted by ATG employees from Kheramot
in a site once vineyard, then minefield, now vineyard again. The ATG
vineyard was cleared by the Halo Trust, a British nonprofit involved
in mine- and bomb-removal projects across the republic. Unfortunately,
the ATG vineyard is a rarity; most of the cleared vineyards are being
turned into wheat fields because, as one Halo Trust officer put it,
“You can’t live off wine.”

Zakiyan oversees an ATG winery in nearby Chartar as well. When fully
operational, it will likely become the face of Karabakh wine for the
growing number of tourists.

Yet even as the sun begins to shine on Zakiyan and his colleagues
through the region’s thick fog, nature is unrelenting. The 2004
crop was almost totally destroyed by an unexpected spring frost,
with temperatures dropping to 28° F in April. Close to 80 percent
was lost. Will they bother picking the rest or just call the harvest
a total loss?

“We will pick the grapes no matter what,” says a smiling Zakiyan,
his optimistic spirit as formidable a force as the weather and the
constant challenges that hamper him and his countrymen. “The future
of Karabakh is in good wine production. It’s our national tradition.”

Matt Kettmann is the pop culture editor for the Santa Barbara
Independent and a freelance correspondent for Time magazine. He
journeyed to Nagorno-Karabakh last spring.

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