I think that people like me, we have a job here to do. We have to tell the stories of these wineries. We have to make the statement along with the wineries about us, about Armenian wineries. We have to put the word out there and we need to tell everyone about this wine region. Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul Kay. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are in studio today, beautiful
Southern California on World Series Day. Actually looking forward to that this evening after yesterday's walk off Grand Slam, which is incredible. Hey, have a listen to a couple of shows. One of them is Rachel Martin. She was just in here from Oceano Wines and she has experienced an amazing renaissance in her brand through a non alcoholic and low alcoholic brands. And she explains why and it's the first time in my career after 35 years
because non alcoholic wines are not new. They've been around for a long time. But she. I've never tasted the same wine from the same plot from the same vineyard made both regular style and then non alcoholic. So I was able to taste those side by side. A really interesting concept. And another show you should listen to is Randy Duor. He is represents Iniskillen, which is Canadian dessert
wine grown near Niagara Falls. And I've never tasted pairings with food like these wines did not like admit after 10 courses or eight courses we had there was a lot of dessert wine but the pairing with Thai food and the spice component was incredible. And the wine in a skill in particularly their Cabernet franc late harvest is really quite incredible. We're here today though to have a conversation with Ani and I'm going to screw this up because I just wrote it down Duzbadanyan.
And she is a journalist turned wine journalist. And we met the other night at a wine tasting that was exclusively Armenian wines. And she introduced herself and I thought, wow, this is really interesting. I wanted to get her on the show. So welcome to the show. Thank. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. I know we had a little trouble scheduling and all that, but glad we're here on a Saturday afternoon and a chance to catch up on wine and all things Armenian. And we were just talking a
little bit offhand, you know, I thought let's just talk about Guinea Fest. I thought it was really good. Yes, they've expanded into like artifacts, clothes, you know, Nazuk. The whole booth on Nazuk. Yes, you can't go wrong with Nazuk. I thought that was pretty fun. But I Did taste all the wines. I went through the whole thing, and I was very impressed. Now, last time I went was two years ago, I think, when it was at. In Burbank. A year
ago. Last year when it was at the Castaways. Oh, in Castaway. Yeah. It was before COVID Oh, that was before. It was the second Guinea Festival. That's how long it's been since it's been. Yes. And I think there was a substantial increase in. I say the quality because the quality has always been fairly solid. But I mean, just the stability of the wines. True, I agree. This is my, what,
sixth Guinea Fest. I'm. I missed the first one, but since the second one, I was constantly going and covering Guinea Fest for various publications. Really? Yeah. Did you write about it yet? I did. Last year I wrote about Guinea Fest for the LA Times and before that for the Armenian Mirror Spectator. And also, if I'm not mistaken, one time I wrote for an Armenian newspaper in Armenia. What did you say about this last one?
Have you written that article? This last one? Actually, this one was the only one that I wasn't working for. Oh, you weren't working? I was just playing. Yes. I was just enjoying all the wines, meeting with new producers and just old friends. It was great. And actually, Guinea Fest was the event, and Anush was the person who got me into wine writing. Anush was? Yes. Let's go back to that a little bit. You're born in Yerevan. You're born in Armenia. Yes.
Correct. And you came here about, like, 18 years ago. Eighteen years ago. Eighteen Years ago. And you were writing then, when you did that? When I moved to the. Well, before moving to the United States, I was a journalist. I was working in the news programs in Armenia even when I was a student at the university. And what. What outlets were available to you in Armenia being. We'll see, 17 years. So I was. I started when I was 17. Wow. I was. My first job was in French
Armenian Magaz magazine. That is no longer available, unfortunately. But I applied. They. They wanted a translator, so I applied. But then when they learned that I am a student, they were like, can't you write? You're a journalist. I was like, but I'm just starting. They said, okay, if you can write, let's do it. And I started to write about different things for this magazine. And one year later,
they threw a big party and closed down the magazine. Okay, I'm going to stop you there for a second, because I'm a Francophile. My dad spoke French, from French, and I Find it really interesting because so many Arab countries is common language. In Cairo, where my dad was born, it was the third language. You had to know French prior to the English protectorate, but I don't see a lot of that in Armenia. They had a French Armenian magazine. Yes. Actually,
Armenians are pretty francophone, I would say. The school that I was going, like elementary school and the high school, so it was francophone kind of a school. Never sensed that they had two officially francophone schools in Armenia. Wow. Are they still there? Yes, they're still there. Last time I checked. I don't know how many. I'm gonna have to push a little harder if speak French in Armenia. Yes, it's kind of fun, you know. Anyway, so you. So you were writing for them and then. Because I,
you know, now that I don't even know what the local papers are. We were there last month. I don't know why I wouldn't be able to read them anyway. But you were writing for the general journalism. Yes, just doing interviews, writing about profiles of famous people, etc. But I was just a student. Yeah. And then. And then I. We had a class in investigative journalism, and I loved it. I got involved and we did a couple of projects in investigative journalism.
And later on I moved into a TV journalism, which I wanted to do initially. So I got into news programs, and that was that. And later on, I moved here to the United States with my husband, had my kids foreign. That tends to slow things down. Yes, obviously it did. But during that time, I still continued to write for the Armenian newspapers back there in Armenia. And then with Tigram Paskovichan, he's a journalist
in Armenia, actually, veteran journalist. And with him we did a project so interviewing old people, Armenian people who repatriated to armenia in the 1930s and 1940s from the United States, from other European countries. And when Soviet collapsed, or even before that, when they had a chance, they moved back to either Europe or to the United States. So with all my other colleagues who were involved in this project, we interviewed all these people. And at the end, the project became
a documentary. 3 documentary. Never heard that one. They did a presentation here years ago in Abdiel Bookstore. Indigenous Armenians who had left, then repatriated to the homeland and then left again. Yes, because of the genocide. So because of the genocide, they moved to other countries. They leave. Then they came back. They came back to the Soviet Union, to the Soviet Armenia, and they saw all the horrible conditions that Soviet Armenia was
in and people. But they couldn't leave, obviously, a lot of them were exiled into Siberia. And those stories are just horrible, horrible to learn. And when I was doing these interviews, I was actually eight months pregnant with my daughter. And the emotional, emotional thing was very big, but I loved it. So that was the biggest project that I did during the whole time that I was raising my kids. After that, when they were off to school and kindergarten, preschool, I
all grown. Up by then, right? No, no, they're not still in the process. Right. So I started to write about Armenian community for the Armenian Mirror Spectator. This is the oldest English Armenian newspaper in the United States. They're based in Watertown, Massachusetts. So I wrote a lot of stories of the Armenians here. Individuals, businesses, organization in California. And later I just realized that we know everything about ourselves as a community, but others don't.
Because as a community we were very inclusive. We didn't like the others to interfere, to learn. Kind of our. That's a really good way to put it. So. And I understand it's still that way. It is still that way. And I understand that it's. It's a way to survive. At least it was a way to survive for our ancestors. Yes. You had to keep your cards close to your chest. Exactly. But I think it's time to invite everybody in because that's going to be the other
way to survive for the next generations. Well, I mean, I think that's most obvious when you introduce yourself to a non Armenian in America and they all say, oh, I know another Armenian. They all know. But that's the end of the road. That's the end of the conversation. Do you know so and so. And it's like. Yeah, well, you know, I think we. Know everybody and most of the times it's not a person that you want to be associated with. Yeah, right. So I.
Some medical fraudster or something. Right. Or some famous people who are not really representing our culture. So I wanted to change that as much as I could and I wanted to break down the stereotypes for my community. Yes. My first, My first work was for Eater la. So really that was during the pretty big thing. It was. I couldn't believe my eyes when I. When I saw the email. Did they approach you? No, I approached them. So there was during. During the COVID The COVID was kind of ending and. No,
no, I'm sorry. It was during the war. There was this Armenian farmers market. It was Covid. It was war. Everything was together in 2000 and 20s. Where's that Armenian farmers market? It was in Glendale, next to the central library. Guess that. So I learned about that event. So. And I thought to myself, I don't want to write about this for the Armenian newspaper because we know we are all going to be there. And I pitched the story to Iter
and immediately I got a response that, yes, let's do this. Wow. I was very excited. That's great. So it turned out that they knew about Armenian cuisine, especially the food, for example, of Huds that was going to be there at the market and other stuff too. And that's how I started to write for Eater. And then I moved to
other publications. But when I. So I. And then I got into wine. So this is a different story because my other big publication that I pitched and started to write about, write for was the Wine Enthusiast. Well, wow. So. And that was the article about orange wine made in Armenia. Not in Georgia, in Armenia. That's had one the other night. Yeah. Yes. So you weren't. You didn't know anything about wine really, or you just knew what you liked. Does your
husband drink wine? He does. He does. And luckily he shares the passion with me. We do yearly visits to the wine country, any wine country, so we love going to Paso. So we go there, we stay there, we taste the wines, we meet people. So. And I meet the Bezions the other night at the Guinea Fest. They had their Paso Robles winemakers. They were in just last week. Which one? Bezgin. It's called Kini. Oh, yes, it was next to. Yes, yes, I met them before. Yeah. Yes. Really sweet. Yes.
Very nice people. So, you know, it's kind of interesting because journalism, we were talking about this before we started about, you know, writer's block and, you know, and I've, you know, even though I was a businessman for 35 years and, you know, I bought and sold 17 million bottles of wine. The creative. I'm just. I'm a creative person in my mind. I'm not the. My wife's a numbers person, cpa, but I'm the guy that's spatial and I don't really pay attention
to the details. And, you know, I just respect that so much and I. I'm jealous of it, but I respect it and I. And I'm in it now. I get to do this and that and. And do some writing. But it sounds like based on your career here, if you know how to write, if you know how to communicate with people, even subjects that you might not be, you know, intimately familiar with, you certainly you're not going to know as much as Anush knows all the studies she's Done, of course. And. But you can still write
and communicate thoughts. And regardless of the overall knowledge base of the subject, you, you study it, you research it and you write enough to communicate with people. Of course, of course. I mean, so here you are, journalists of French. I mean, we come to America, all of a sudden you're writing for Eater, which is a huge, you know, food foodie site. And then. And that moves into the Wine enthusiasts, which is one of the great periodicals of our
time in wine. Yes, true. Do you like it? Oh, I love it. I love writing. Yeah. And about wine. Is the wine subject interesting? Yes. Actually I realized that this is. Well, I was always thinking what's going to be my, like my subject, something that I really love to do, to write about. And turns out it's wine. At least for now. I don't know. Yeah, I know, but it's really competitive, isn't it? It is, it is competitive. But when it comes to the Armenian wine, it's not because there are not
many people who write about Armenian wine, which is unfortun. Because all the, all of this revolution that is happening in the Armenia. In Armenia, in the Armenian wine industry. That's an interesting thought because we do get. And maybe this goes back to what you're saying earlier about we don't tend to want to break out of our mold or out of our communities and there's a lot of support within the community. But. And so we get these accolade articles once in a while and
it's. They're usually one off articles. They're not written about as much as Napa or, or as Bordeaux or Burgundy, those places. It's, it's just. Oh, by the way, there's Armenia. Yes. You want to change that? I, I'm planning to. That's, that's my plan. And actually I see all the articles that I see about Armenian wine that others are writing, they're mostly about the same producers. So. Yeah. In my career in, in my profession, I always tend to write about people who are not
popular, but they're doing great job. Yeah. So that's what I'm trying to do for the last, I don't know how many years. And I mean, this industry, you know, building a brand is the hardest thing in the world in any industry. My niece is trying to build a brand in the salad dressing industry, which is, you know, competing with Wishbone and Paul Newman and all that stuff. And wine's. Wine's even tougher because there's a lot of huge companies that make
wines and you're never going to get shelf space, you know, on your own. So without your type of skills and communication level with people, it's, it's a hard. It's a hard deal. But one thing, when you said that, the one thing that struck me and I. It was amazing at Guinea Fest. There are a couple of the old school guys there, but there was a whole, that whole row where I met you, both of those tables, one of them was cork and bottle. As a distributor, I think
that guy, you know, should have his head examined. Armin, wonderful conversation. And I'm just saying this tongue in cheek as a joke, but I mean, to, to start a distributor in Los Angeles at this time on wines that no one's ever heard of. Yeah. Is a. Has to be a labor of love and passion. Okay, but here's the point I want to make. When I sat here on Tuesdays, every Tuesday morning, and I looked at the list of who was coming in, they made an appointment. I already knew the level of
quality that was coming in that day. And I knew, and I won't mention any names, the stuff that was going to be mostly crap. I'm going to say 90% of the stuff that I tasted with certain vendors was crap. Other vendors are very good at curating and making sure the ones that most of them are good, you know, at least solid. I thought that whole table, there's like 20 wines, maybe more, had a solid base, solid level of quality. And I told
his wife, I said, you know, I just told her the same story. Did you feel that? Did you like, did you sense this? I had never heard of any of those wines. And I thought the whole lineup was really good. Yes, the wines are good. I mean, we don't. We used to be a wine drinking come. Yes, well, of course, 6,100 years ago. But we forgot about that because of the 70 years of Soviet ruling. Yes. That artificially made us drink vodka. Yes. Sweet wine who. Nobody drunk. And then brandy,
who. That wasn't really that good. No. So. And now. Whatever. But don't tell Winston Churchill that. Because he loved Noyak. But whatever. Is it true, though? I don't know. I've read articles. Yes, I've read other journalists wrote about it. I hope it's true. But still, I want us to return to the wine traditions, wine drinking traditions. And that's what this, all these winemakers are doing in Armenia. And the wines are really good. Of course, there are bad wines. They're
everywhere. Not only in Armenia, in France too. You can occasionally Get a bottle of horrible wine. And just because it's made in France, it doesn't mean that it's good or in Italy or anywhere else. But these people are really trying and making wine in a politically and regional instability is a very hard thing. And you really have to have a passion for that. It's not about money. I mean almost all the producers that I know, we're not talking about the big, big producers who are just investing
and they're making money. It's a different story. But the other boutique wineries who are making wine in Armenia, it's not about profit, it's about just doing what they love. Passion. It's passion. I mean, if you don't have it, forget it. Yeah, and continuing the tradition. You mentioned that table, but next to that distributor was Malahi wine. I mean Maran Winery, this winery. The story of this winery goes back to two to 300 years. They were the first one who had a wine press in the region like
300 years ago. And now the Hares are continuing the tradition making wine. And that was the first winery in post Soviet era who introduced the terroir based wine making to the Armenian to, to, to the Armenian winemaking industry. And they still continue making great wines. I had their Voska hot the other night. There's a blend I think Alotes. It's great. I thought it was absolutely world class. Yeah, it is. And, and not only world
class because this is an important part of, of the wine industry. Wine is consumer driven and so as much as romantic as I would want it to be, and I'm already looking forward to the Bordeaux I'm going to drink tonight that consumers still drive the marketplace. And I thought that was a contemporary style wine with all the fruit, but still good structure and still good acid in the nose. I mean it just jumped out of the glass. Oh yeah, I agree. Fabulous wine. True. You know,
you said something interesting. I had a winemaker sitting where you're sitting the other day, a French winemaker. And we were discussing the same problem. Yeah, you can go to the market in France and get a €2 wine in the supermarket and it's going to be awful. And, and I brought this up the other night at the Armenian assembly event and I almost. There were, it was, it was the Maran wineries and the Yakubian Hobbs Winery. You got to choose at some point what side of
the line you're going to be on. Are you going to try and be that supermarket $15 wine? Because that's a whole different type of marketing and structure or you're going to be on the other side where you're trying to attract the boutique drinkers, the people that are interested in the. In the terroir and they want to understand wine. And that's where we have to be.
I mean the Katas wines, because they had the backing or naked as money, all the things that go behind that they can go compete in total wine and bevmo and all that on a 15 bottle of wine. And they' bad, you know, they're. They're solid wines. But you brought something up. I want to push a little further. I've decided that not. It's
not even me. If you were to pick, let's say five elements of a culture, just say the Armenian culture, the, the American culture, the French culture, the Spanish culture, the Italian culture, you would have to say that cuisine is a representative true land, if you have it right. Yes. Wine. Yeah. Wine should be that expression of a culture. I would definitely put it there. Yeah. If you could, if you. If your culture. Other cultures like Colombia, they don't
have wine, but they have distilled spirits that are represent. You know, Chileans have pisco sours and there's this licorice thing from other parts of the world, but wine. And Juliana Ernakian said it the best. What other product can you take halfway across the world, put on the desk and say this is who we are and this is when we were. If it's a proper honest wine that represents where it's from, I agree. And you think that that's where we need to be? Oh yes,
definitely, definitely. And I think that people like me, we have a job here to do. We have to tell the stories of this wineries. We have to make the statement along with the wineries because I mean, couple of weeks ago I was sitting down and trying wine with the representative from of chat Angelus. So I mean it's that you cannot be better than that. It's there. It's like eight, seven, eight generation old winery. And there is so much to tell about them, but there isn't really.
But about us about Armenian wineries. We have to put the word out there and we need to tell everyone about this wine region who is constantly under the danger of being attacked or being, I don't know, eliminated from that place. Like it happened with Artsakh wines. All the wine region, the entire wine region just disappeared because. Because of the war, because of the poor calculation and politics and everything else that I just really don't want to. Go into you know, it's funny
because you said Angelus. And we were just there. And on the way back from the France, there was a show on. On the. On the TV station, on. On the airplane, you know, on the channels, and it was about Bordeaux. And it was. And Angelou's was highlighted in that. It was this. That, you know, the owner. The current owner. Yes. And she was trying to dig into this thing and. And, you know, it was sort of politically driven, and their position in the world of wine
kind of is politically placed there. And my dad used to say in that picture that you're looking at 1975. He used to say, back then, you know, the French had this amazing way of romanticizing what they are. And the more you think about that, the more it's really story driven that, that. That history and that I want to drink that Bordeaux. I want to feel like I'm back there, like I was. And so that leads to the experience of wine being such an emotional part. You
know, wine is an emotional purchase. It is, right? It is in so many ways, starting with the label. There are wines that I would never drink because of the label. I know it's not right. Anush knows this. I suppose that's accurate. I mean, you look at the label, you're not buying it. Yeah. And there is. There are wines that, honestly, I cannot even drink. I don't know what's happening with me. But when I look at the labor, I was like, no, it cannot be right. I tell you a
funny story. There's two stories that come from that. One of them is about Barefoot Sellers, the famous, biggest brand in America. And the guy who started that was named Mike Houlihan. He was in my office in 1989, and I thought it was the dumbest idea you could ever think of to put a foot on the label and call it barefoot. And he would say, I'm Chateau Lafitte la f E T of. Of. Of America. And I got. I called my father. I said, dad, you won't believe
the guy came in, how stupid this is. Becomes the biggest brand in America. Yeah. And you want to know why that foot's on there? And you talk about the label. He was told by one of the biggest chains of wine sales back then called Thrifty Drugs. The guy told him, I want to see that label from 40 paces away. So when you're walking down the aisle, I want to be able to see your label. I want it to stick out. And that's what he came up with. He was right. Yes. He was right.
So. But the other story was I bought a wine here just before we sold the company, maybe about a few months before. And it was really good. And I didn't pay attention to anything on the label. It was a hand sketch, you know, it was like this drawing, and it was a man. I didn't really pay attention. I just poured it, tasted it, made my notes, called him back and said, I'll make a deal with you.
Well, then when I give it, hand it off to my staff to write about it, you know, to at least get the information, she goes, are you sure you want to feature this wine? I'm like, why? And she shows me the website. It was this whole S M, mail driven thing. Guys with jock straps. I mean, it's gross for me. And it. And the label was the same. I didn't notice it. It was a hand drawing of this guy with a hat and like chains on his arms and stuff. I go, I'm in
big trouble. If I put this on the street. They call the guy, I'm sorry, man, I gotta cancel the. I've never canceled pos, maybe two in my career. And I had to do this really, just because that's how important it is. But, you know, going back to the main point, which is the experiential part of wine. And so now, even for me, if I open a bottle of Huskavaz, I was there. And I have this image of being there. How do we do that in Los Angeles with these wines from
Armenia, The Guinea Festival. Maybe this is to your point. It was all Armenians. Yes, but it wasn't like that before. So this, this year it was different. They had a lot of non Armenian guests and consumers before too. And Armenian wines are getting into big markets. For example, Karas is in Costco. That's right. Armas is in Total Wine and more. Starting this year. A couple of months ago, they. Oh, Victoria. Nobody works harder than Victoria. Yeah,
and other wines too. I mean, I think we just have to continue what we're all doing and just introduce the wines. And articles are important because people are still, thank God, reading most of them, at least. Yeah. So we'll see. And we have to. I mean, the wine community obviously have. Has to be more active, do more wine tastings, just introduce wine to larger audiences. So how often are you pitching wine articles to the periodicals,
Spectator, Enthusiast, and there's a whole bunch of smaller ones. Yeah, not as much as you want. Yeah, not as much as I want because I'm busy with. Well, this is a Passion to me. For me, too. So this is not where I make my living. Yes, but. But I have another job. I have a day job, so. Which is a pr. Doing PR for a nonprofit organization here in
Glend. So. Yes, but when there is a very interesting story, and I love to dig deep and write about the history, the histor, especially the historical aspect of the winery and the wine that I'm writing about, if there is a story. For example, right now I have four stories in making. They're gonna be out sometimes in, I don't know, in November, in December, they told me. And how long from your inception to that first letter of an article to when you think it's done, does it take
you. The. The newspaper? Yeah. Any article listening to the right article about the amber wines in Armenia, when you thought of it and you sat down to your computer the first time? Yes. And then whatever. Take however long it took you to write it till you thought you were done and then rewrite it and then read it again and go away. You know, I missed that point. And how long does that usually take you? Oh, it's a constant. Constant process. It's a process. It depends. They give me a period
of time to write, for example, like two weeks, three weeks, a month. It depends on the. Yes. And then I send it back to them. They send me the edits or the questions that they want to learn more about, and I can't. Either I send them the edits or I contact the wine producers and then I talk to them. And. Well, it's a process. But it's a good process. I love that there's a lot of. Armenians in the domestic wine business. Have you written about them before? Domestic wine? Yeah, like the Bezions.
There's, you know, Kiami Cellars in Paso. There's, like here in. Yes. So I didn't write about them yet, but I pitched the article for two different magazines and I. Well, I just don't want to say it now, but I am planning to write about it next year. We'll see. Fingers crossed. One guy just passed away, Sam Balik. He makes a lot of wine in Paso. His wife still does. I forgot all that. Her name starts with a V. But it's interesting because I don't. As
my travels throughout the wine world, all of a sudden you show up. There's one woman in Napa, Suzanne Sharon Kazanjan. Kazan Harris. And she has the audacity to pour Bordeaux in a downtown Napa tasting restaurant room. Her wines are gorgeous. She's. Does she's. The wine maker. They make them at one of the co ops. But she's very talented and I found her on LinkedIn. Interesting. We became very good friends and she'll never nap on. She's. Her house is right on Highway 29. It's a
beautiful. It's a really cool facility to taste wine in. But she and I are going to get together next time we're up and I'm bringing a host of Armenian wines and annoying vahes. Iranian wine. She wants to taste that because she went to the movie. Yeah, right. I always forget the name. What's it called? Molana. Yeah, Moana. So. So this one. You want to pursue this. You want to continue exposing now you already think you'll get into writing about
French wines or. No, no, I mean I. There. There are no limits. I can write about any wine. It's just when I write about Armenian wine, it's like going home. Yes, it's very easy for me because I know everything. I know what I'm writing about. There is no. There are no secrets. How often do you go back to Armenia? Oh, the last time I was there was this summer. I took my kids because they're old enough now to see and understand their culture, their homeland. Yeah, they were
there before two times. But now that it was, it was. Think of the changes in downtown and the rest of the country. Well, there were good changes and obviously bad changes. So good changes were in like casual living of people. But I. But unfortunately we do know changes are present and we're losing a lot and I don't know, it's just, just sad. I mean society there. When we were there in 2007 is the first time I ever went. My mother in law owned a hotel there. The Ani
hotel was hers. And you. They were. The corruption is still there. And it was very thick then, probably even more. But at that time you can only get kebab and tomatoes and you didn't really drink the water. And now it's like Paris downtown, except for the architecture, but the food and the safety of it that we're able to walk around is pretty amazing. But the part that disturbs me a little bit that you got 100 meters outside of town and you're back to a pretty rural, rustic part of town.
And most people that work in Armenia can't afford to even be in Yerevan. Right, that's. That's the saddest part. And it was always like that, unfortunately. But now it's. I think now it's more for us going back from the United States, it was accessible. But when I asked my friends and when I took them to. When I met with them at the restaurants that I thought were. Okay. Yeah. Were just regular restaurants, turned out they couldn't even afford that. Yeah. And it's not. I mean, it's not
right. No, no. It's. Well, I think that's, you know, byproduct of socialism. And it'll take many generations to flatten that out. And. And, you know, where is all the money coming from? We're not. This is not a political show, though it looks like it's turning into one. But let's not do that. So my interest in it, and I was sort of agnostic to all of it until God and Bagdasarian from Abrish was sitting where you're sitting, and I forgot how I even got a hold
of him. And then when we were in New York for an event in soho, my wife remembered that the Capralians had a jewelry business in soho. So I got ahold of the daughter and she sat down with us. Alexandra. Yeah. And we all of a sudden had this whole idea of. It goes further. It's really interesting to me, and maybe it's part of an article for you. My question in my mind was, why are wineries the spoils of war?
And clearly the Azerbaijans wanted the wineries. And when you listen to God and, you know the end of this teaser reel I did, he's like, they took everything. They took the bottles, the corks and everything. And we were afraid to leave. We were afraid to take stuff in our trucks because we would be targeted having this stuff in the car. So we left everything. Yes. And they got taken. And so it led me into World War II, which was the first war where the invading armies realized that
there's something really cool here and we shouldn't destroy it. We should probably just embrace it. And the Nazis had an amazing channel for Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne. Champagne and Alsace. But before that, it wasn't like that. World War I. They destroyed everything. So I just thought, wow, now it's come to rooster in our own backyard. And it was very sad stuff to listen to. It opened the doors for me into a huge subject of thing. Have you written about that,
or is it too painful to do? No, I wrote an article about all these wineries who were left in Artakh, about Karen's operas, about Raj and Alexandra, Takri and Aran. And what was the fourth one? I don't remember. There's four, though, right? Yeah. There was a fourth one that I wrote about for Men's Journal, and unfortunately, no other publication wanted that article. And I pitched for over a year, really, to different publications. They. They just. What was the general reason
that they would. They didn't give me a reason. They just. Yeah, they weren't interested. And wine enthusiasts wrote an article. They asked someone else to write. Non Armenian, I don't even remember his name. He wrote an article about, supposedly Artsakh wines, but it was mostly about the Armenian wines being affected by this situation. So I decided to write about
Cataro. Cataro was the fourth wine. So I decided to write about these people because especially people from the United States who basically moved there, made investments. Million dollars investments. Not only growing grapes and making wines, but also building factories, building hotels, restaurants, and so many other things. And then they just were left with nothing. So I wrote that article for Men's Journal, and then Jason Weiss from somtv, he invited me to his podcast and we talked
about the article and not this whole situation at Artsakh. So. So we were just trying to. When was that? Recently? Yes, very recently. Oh, yeah, like a month ago. Is he in la? Jason? Jason, yes. Yeah. He's a talented guy and he tells some good stories. He is. He is. I met him because of the Molana. So Moana. They were screening Moana here in Glendale. In la Male theater, and. That's right. Yes. So I went there, and then LA Times asked
me to write about the movie. Oh, that's great. That was your article. I think I read that. That probably if it was in LA Times, it was my. Well, I don't subscribe to it anymore, but I think I got a hold of that. Yeah. So, yes, that was another thing. And actually I had a friend who was always very skeptical about me talking about wine. Just winemaking, all these traditions and everything. And she was like, come on, wine is also. It's the same thing as vodka as,
I don't know, tequila or. Or any other beverage. I was like, no, you don't understand. It's different. I invited her to come with me to see the movie. She came in the end of the movie, she was all tears, and she was like, ani, now I understand what you meant. Well, sometimes you just got to show them. Yeah. Take them to the drink, you know? Yes. Well, I. I had this funny story, and I was with Vahe at. When we were there last,
he. He came in this building, actually, years ago, and he walked in and we both recognized each other. The first podcast we did together, and he goes, you don't remember Me? Do you? I said, well, I. You look familiar because I bought wine from you. Oh. So when he was in Berkeley with his restaurant, it's before the Armenian stuff, but either before or after the Italian. I think he did the Italian wineries, then came to Berkeley, then went to Armenia. He needed Gallo Chardonnay
for. He says, I think it was my niece's wedding and it was in la, and he didn't know anybody in LA to buy it from. And we had done business together. But when he left that day, I came home, told my wife, and this is probably five or seven years ago. I said, I just met probably one of the most brilliant winemakers I've met, period. Forget Armenia for a complete understanding of what this industry is about. Because he's a balance between. And I think this is where almost all
winemakers need to be. The ones with more capital don't have to be, but a balance between consumerism and selling stuff and manufacturing things that. The passion side of manufacturing something. Yeah. That represents something. And it's a very difficult teeter. It's a very difficult balancing act. It is. And to make money is almost impossible. Yeah. And it's like art. When you make art, you cannot sell it. It's kind of hard to sell it. Right.
Because you're the artist there. I think it's the same with wine. They have to have strong marketing arm to just market and sell whatever they're making. The winemaker, the artist is making, and most are farmers. I mean, think about wine makers are really farmers. It true. One, the guy sitting there the other day, a French wine maker, he said, and I. I never heard it put this way, was very eloquent. It was great. Wines are born in the vineyard. They're not born. They're not.
They don't grow into. In the bottle. In other words, unless you're pulling out of that vineyard the right stuff and do it right, you're not going to develop a great wine sitting in the cellar. Yes. Right. Yes. That's what happens. I think it's the entire process.
They're farmers. The winemaker Trinity, Kanye Vineyards in Armenia. He was telling me when I was interviewing him for the Orange Wine article, he was telling me that they're singing songs, Armenian traditional songs to their wines that were aging in goddesses in the. On for us. Well, that's not an unusual thing. There's a winery in
Sardinia or one of the islands there. And they did an experiment where they took two grapevines, they put them in rooms, they planted and watered them, and One of them, they played rock and roll and the other one, they played classical music. And according to this study, it was Bose, you know, the famous audio company. The grapes vine with the classical music grew closer to the speaker and the rock and roll
one, blue, grew away from the speaker. And so this winery in I think it's Sardinia, has giant speakers in the vineyard that they play this music through. Do you think that the risk to embark in an appellation like Armenia and entire country is an appellation, let's call it, is greater than most places in the world to try and start something like this? Yes, I think so. Because. Because of the regional developments. Yes, because it's constantly. There is a constant, like something more,
something happening, like something in the back here. Yes, there's always some backstory going on. There is. And the region of viad store that is the most. The main region when they grow grapes and make wine is very close to where this is all happening. I don't want to go into politics. Yeah, I understand that, but I. But that's an added risk to all the other headwinds of wine.
Yes. And we're halfway across the world where, you know, even Georgian wines that have been around forever and they've been in America for a long time, they don't have this. They don't have a. A great foothold, they don't have a stronghold here. I've tasted very few, I've tasted almost zero Croatian wines, which are gorgeous while here in America. And so this is a long haul that we're into. It is. But Georgia, for example, they're doing a great job in marketing their wines. And because.
Because the government is involved. That's right. They have the government support. Unfortunately, Armenian wines don't. Why? I don't know. It's a good question. Yeah. No one's ever told you the answer to that or no one's ever asked the question? I don't know. But as for me, it has to be one of the priorities for the government because it's something that represents the country. One of the things that represents the. Country, it's only a 50 million dollar industry. I mean
that's some winers. One winery in California is much Opus is larger than that. Yeah. And there's only 17,000 hectares, what about 40,000 acres? And that's. Oregon has more than that. California is 11 times that. But it's an interesting problem and I had a gentleman in, Mr. Booker, and he's part of the Washington State Commission, which is a government commission on wine and what the commission does. And I want your opinion of applying this
methodology to Armenia. The commission, the government commission taxes the farmers 2 tons, whatever the price is per ton. You pick 10 tons, you're going to pay this tax. They take that tax, they put it in a pool of money and then there's a consortium of vintners, all Washington vintners that get together and decide what to do with the money, how to market the region, how to get people other parts of the country to learn about what they do.
You think there's any chance that an Armenian wine group would allow themselves to be taxed? It's. It's a hard question. That's a tough question, right? It is. There is a foundation. There is a Armenian vine and wine foundation that is. I think it's a government organization. Yeah, it is. Who does overseas some parts of the operation. I know they're doing stuff, but I mean, I don't see that big support that the other countries like Georgia has.
And then also all these wines that are left in Artsakh and now are considered Azerbaijani wines. I am constantly seeing advertisements on my social media talking about Azerbaijani wines. Those are not really. Yes. So they started already. They're doing things with it. They're marketing it as their own. Obviously it's not theirs. No. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's all the wineries that we left there. But
so this is. Again, I didn't know that. That's really sad. Yeah. And also we have Turkish wine going on too, and they're pretty big. And only once I read in an article where a winemaker is admitting that before the genocide. Well, obviously he's not saying the word, but he's saying that before there were Armenians and Greeks who were growing grapes and making wine there. I was like, okay, at least. Thank you for being honest. Some recognition there. Some recognition,
yes. I'd never known about. I mean certainly everybody knows about the Persian wines and Chateau Musar and stuff like that. Yeah. But. But I never. We went to our Armenian restaurant in, in San Francisco that was only a short lived restaurant, but they had an incredible list and I didn't recognize anything. And there were a lot of Turkish wines on that list. This is probably 10 years ago. Restaurant's gone now.
The had a question. I forgot what it was. This happens quite frequently in my, my tenure here. The wine, the wine process. You know, one of the things too that's important in the wine world is when Vaya was telling me about the price and drums. Yes. Of grapes. And I was, it was a. I was Having a panic attack because it was not even a tenth of what. What grapes cost in America. And so you kind of think that, you know, those wines should be inexpensive. You know,
they. If it costs. The grapes are so little, you know, price wise, but all the other costs to get them to America, it's huge now. Yeah. It becomes a big, big number. And so to get an armenian wine that's 30 or $40 retail, and this is the general problem in wine, even the wines in that painting. If I already know that I can buy a Duckhorn Merlot for 60 bucks or 40 bucks, why am I going to risk buying an Armenian wine in that price range? And if you don't
have any idea about. No one tells you about it. Yeah. You have to try and see what it is. And you cannot really go and buy a wine that is even more like 60 or 80 bucks and just try it. Not this consumer, not this age, not. Not right now. I will say there's two things that have happened that I thought were very encouraging. One is particularly here in Los Angeles where the wholesale brands. Consolidation of the
wholesalers has been very difficult on most brands. And, you know, in order to get a wine, for instance, if Voskavas was here and they wanted to be in the Southern wines and spirits book, it'd be almost impossible. And even if they were in it, they wouldn't sell any because it's up to the supplier, the winery to go out and shop these things. That they're basically just
become trucking companies for these. For these brands. But there are two or three smaller distributors in Los Angeles that are not Armenian, they're not Middle Eastern distributors that carry Armenian brands. And that's very encouraging. Yes, because that means that made them pass the. The tasting panels of these companies. Massanoise is one of them. Garber is another one. That these are independent small distributors out there shaking the tree that have. Have French, Italians,
Biodynamic, you know, all the things in their book. And that's a very encouraging thing to happen. Sure. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to someone from Wyoming and she was telling me that she was representing a chef that. Who couldn't be at the meeting because of some things that happened. So she was telling me that they have a wine store there next to their restaurants. And she was asking me what was the. What is the good
Armenian wine to have? Because they have all these wines from different parts of the world that are not very common in the market. So that was interesting. That's in Wyoming. In Wyoming, yeah. I Want to, because everybody's leaving California and going to Wyoming, so they have to have better wines. I don't know. But it's going to be cool. Pretty cool, actually. I think Ven Yakubian brought that up the other night, that Yakuban Hobbs is in. In Wyoming somewhere. Really?
Yeah. That's cool. But that would be because of Hobbes. Part, I think I actually made a joke about that, which I said this Jacobian Hobbes. And actually, that's another very important point. And we're almost out of time. Actually, we're out of time, but. Oh, we are that, you know, Paul Hobbs, one of the famed enologists in the world. And typically a guy like him, you know, he goes out and helps for a fee and gets you on your feet. But in this case, he put his name on
the bottle and that was a very encouraging and very important thing. I mean, make. I go, I said something like, but he's dealing with Armenian, so he's the second name. It's not Hobson Yakubian, it's Yakubian and Hobs. No, it's. It's very cool. But the other enologist, I mean, probably better known, is Michelle Ron. And he was in there with Theirans. Yes. And this is an important part of. Of the Armenian wine
culture as well. Michelle Rolant tells Juliana, you can grow grapes here, it's the right conditions, but we won't know for a hundred years. And this will be our final thought. The reason that that is is because it takes 100 years of all the different emaciations of terroir and picking conditions and all the things that go on in the world of wine and the soil nutrients, to understand what is what, what's going to be developed from those vineyards. And
that's where the world has a head start on us. I mean, the Russians, the USSR stagnated all of that. There was no technology, there was no vineyard management, there was. Nobody cared. And so. And my point the other night was, wow, we did really well in the short amount of time we've done to describe what can happen and produce wines. And Mariam Sagathalian, in a conversation, you know who she is, said an interesting
thing. And I. And I think the other night the wine sort of focused on this subject, that is, we really don't know what Odeny is. We haven't grown it enough in enough different conditions and play with enough, because you only get one chance a year to figure it out, to understand what this grape is, until the Milani Oni Stainless steel otany I had the other night, and until it. It reeked of something other than all the other grapes I've ever tasted.
So we have. Which is great gold vines, important deep roots, very expressive of where they're grown. You know, we get the full nutrients of deeper roots. But, you know, vinification techniques, all the things that go behind producing that bottle of wine that represents what it's supposed to represent. So the opposite case. And this is why this sort of the. Where we're at with the Armenian wines. There's a guy in. In Missouri who's been trying to propagate what American
varietals there were. There were no vinnis vinifera varietals, but there were Venus Lambrusca varietals. And I told him, I said, this is almost an impossible task for you because you're dealing with grapes that no one's ever heard of, that they haven't been grown for 100 years. They're just. You've got remnants of them, and you're putting them in an area that no one's ever grown grapes in before. And so there's so many variables. I don't.
You may never figure it out. So here you've got a 100-year-old vine. So at least we know that the vine is producing grapes. That's going to be good. Yes. Good for what it is and expressive for where it is. And now we have to learn the vinification techniques, which could take 20 vintages. Yes. And that's not cheap. It's not. It's. Especially for a country like Armenia that has no ways, not many ways, to get connected with the
world because of its regional situation. Yeah. They say it takes eight hours, just at least from artsock, it took eight hours just to get to the port. True. Yeah. I mean, that's a long bus ride. You never afford that in California. Yes. You know, you would just add too much to the price. Thank you for stopping me at Guinea Fest and saying hi and I got a chance to chat with you about all these things. I'm sure we'll have more to talk about in the next coming
months and we'll talk again. Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Cheers. Cheers.