Alina Hovhannisyan. Starting next year, the Armenian Trinity Canyon Vineyards Winery, which is the beneficiary of the The Organic Agriculture Support Initiative (OASI) program, funded by the EU, will start exporting organic wine. The executive director of the plant, Hovakim Saghatelyan, told journalists about this as part of a study tour with the EU delegation to Vayots Dzor region.

Answering the question of ArmInfo, H.. Saghatelyan noted that since the time of its foundation, an organic wine has been produced at the winery, but production has received certification only this year. The vast majority of products is exported to a number of European countries – Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States, and is sold in specialized stores in the domestic market. On average, the total production is 30 thousand bottles per year.

"Organic farming is the future of Armenia. And our most important task is to return to our sources and produce organic wine, which our ancestors produced more than 6 thousand years ago. Today we are trying to establish a niche in the market under the conditional name historical wines, which we hope to fill with other producers in the region – Georgia and our other neighbors. And then a European will want to taste the wine from which the history of the wine began, "he said.

To note the vineyard "Trinity" was founded in 2009 in Areni on the territory adjacent to one of the oldest wine regions in the world. The production process itself has been launched since 2013.

To note Karine Sargsyan, marketing specialist of the OASI (The Organic Agriculture Support Initiative ) program of the Austrian Development Agency, said earlier that in the GDP structure the share of agriculture is 20%, of which only 0.01% is organic. The expert attributed low production volumes to the lack of public awareness about the benefits of organic production, which certainly affects the level of consumption. At the same time, K. Sargsyan noted that Armenian organic products are ahead of the quality of producers in European countries, taking into account the climatic conditions and the number of sunny days.

OASI was launched in Armenia in January 2015 and is being implemented by the Austrian Development Agency with EU funding. The initiative is aimed at the development of organic agriculture and the sale of organic products in Armenia both in the domestic and foreign markets. The total program budget is 3.3 million euros.

According to the latest data of the RA Customs Service, in 2017 Armenia exported 2.8 million liters of wine, with an annual growth of 50.5%, while the customs value grew by 81% to $ 10.78 million. -0-