📍 Syunik

Syunik (Syuniq) is Armenia's southernmost province, where wine is more a grapevine heritage than a big industry. The Vine and Wine Foundation of Armenia lists five main wine provinces on its regions page: Ararat, Vayots Dzor, Armavir, Aragatsotn and Tavush. Syunik is not one of them. What it does have, in its gorges, is the most diverse wild grapevine population in the country.

Biologists searching for wild vines across Armenia took 61 of their 148 samples in Syunik, more than anywhere else. The vines cling to cliffs and rock faces and grow in gorges, and genetically the Syunik group turned out to be the most varied of all.

Among cultivated grapes, researchers collected Karmir Koteni, Khndoghni and Sveni in the province. These are not wine celebrities but material for keeping Armenian viticulture alive.

Compare it with Vayots Dzor. There, in 2017, about 1,200 hectares of vines grew, famous Areni among them, yet researchers collected only 15 wild samples. Syunik is the opposite: few vineyards in the lists, a lot of wild grape diversity. The sources used give no vineyard area for Syunik.

If you want to try Armenian wine, begin with Areni from Vayots Dzor or a white from Tavush.