 Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to exotic wine travel guys. I'm Matthew Horky. I'm Sherin Tan. Welcome back to this chat. We're here with We're not even ashamed to say this what our favorite producer our favorite winery in Armenia That's actually where we got our wine career started. So not just Armenia one of our favorites in the world Yeah, I would definitely say that so we are here with the founders the owners of Zora winery and So, uh, we have the Zurich and yet is Garibian. Do I pronounce that right last name? Yeah, fantastic Well, thanks for being on it's good to see you. It's been a couple of years. How are you doing? Tell me what's up? Everything fine. We are just having fun at home just You know, I have to tell before we get started I have to tell the audience a funny story about when we met The first time we were planning to write a book on uh About Armenian wines and I emailed Zora so many times and and and whoever maybe it was you or Some but one of your staff was saying, you know, we don't accept visitors. Sorry And we ended up staying at the same guest house Yeah And shereen shereen hit me and and zorik you were working out It came from your morning run and shereen kept hitting me with her elbow and she said, you know, that's the owner of Zora He should say something to him So so I really wanted to taste your wine. I went online I searched for all the articles and pictures I could find and the moment I saw you I knew that was you because I saw your pictures online And I was like, does he speak English? Oh, yeah, yeah, I know he speaks English shereen was shereen was always uh In in her Old career in her in her corporate career. She was always having to chase down people. So she knew how to love people I'm a professional stalker. So that's what we want you to worry. So can you tell us a little bit about The start of Zora, you know, you know, where's where is Armenia? A lot of people don't know the start of Zora your story Yeah, first of all, sorry. Yeah, I didn't know you but we are still close to public Yeah, uh Zora Zora is a fantastic adventure That has started in uh beginning of 2000 that's the date when Zora project was Uh and we decided to enter in this project uh This is beginning of 2000 just to Uh just to put this on context back then uh in Armenia Armenia was just Got the independence in a few years and uh Nobody was giving credit to our native varieties and All the investments basically they were Oriented toward brandy making So all the investments coming outside or inside Armenia. They were uh directed towards brandy Zora project I can say probably at that time Actually is the first binary that has believed That in Armenia you can make high quality with international credential quality wines out of Armenia and to do that, uh, we have chosen natural choices with our native varieties as you know, we've got hundreds and hundreds of them and to get the game even more Difficult we opted from the beginning to age our wine in our traditional with our traditional aging technology Which is inside yam for us and if you call them garasses Just to say that at that time in 2000 Nobody was talking about native varieties in the world and nobody was talking about afro wines. I mean, this is Played it for itself people were just very looking at us very strange thing, I mean, I mean grav Gravener didn't come out with there and far this until yeah mid-2000s. I think yeah, or maybe it was late 90s But yeah, you were right there on the forefront Yeah, we we started obviously as you know, why it's or our region doesn't have the pillow, etc and We didn't have any idea of What was going what was going to be the outcome? We opted to start with RNA grape RNE is in my opinion Is the king of our minion red grape varieties native varieties? And because it has been in our area since millennia I don't know if you know Okay, you know about the oldest winery in the world are any 1k which is just in front of Zora Yeah, Zora's winery and vineyard where you started that good little It's right Inside there apart from the discovery of the amphoras which dates back to 6100 years They have found around the Around that I'm for us also peeps and stems Which are from the same period And analysis done as a DNA brings it to the RNA of today's RNA that are planted in biozoom Oh, that's really cool. They just gave me shivers I can't believe I remember you you started earlier, but your first vintage wasn't till 2010, right? 10 vintage and e12 in the market Wow, so you really I mean you did your did your homework you were Moving about slowly with patience, right? Yeah, also because we couldn't uh fast forward anything because the knowledge was Near to zero when we started we didn't have any neighbors to look To understand what to do how to do and because it was ungraphed even today Everything in biozoom is ungraphed so And because RNA has been in the area since millennium, so it has different shades different strengths so for So many early 10 years in the vineyards We have done intensive field selection mass selection and created the collection of these strengths that In zora's idea. They are the good potential the best potential out of RNA as a great And I have called it I have to say it here and I've called this collection these years of war I've called it RNA noir RNA noir was coined by zora RNA noir didn't exist in armenia as a word is invented by zora's project And I'm very happy that now my colleagues in armenia also they are using to Yeah, that's why they're great variety. They use RNA which doesn't bother me. I'm more than happy Have contributed So yeah, uh, so after 10 years is our first one as you say zora RSC is the wine that we came out 10 harvest 12 In the market and for for those and anybody if anybody has questions jump in in the comment section will answer them For people that don't kind of kind of new to armenian wine Zora is invites to zora. This is an incredible wine region high plateau. We're talking 1,000 to 1,600 meters It looks, uh, it looks like a high desert basically You see a lot of rock and ice and then greens from the vines old vines vineyards that are hidden all over the place And what you're what you're working with is a ready for red career a noir for white It's boss. Yeah, go around the back and now chill. All right. Is that correct? Yeah Sorry just for varieties just for grapes currently Okay, since the beginning we every year we do experiments because we've got so many of different varieties That even to us they are unknown. So we do experiments. We leave it there. We go back next year. We take them back I don't want to push any I don't want to fast forward anything Uh, zora as a philosophy is uh, any wine comes out from zora's project Has to be more than 100 percent 100 percent is not enough for us. We are after 120 percent So that's why after 20 years, of course, I've got only three wines and the fourth one is coming up For example, sorry for the wife. So what we're doing was ski We had about eight varieties which we started experimenting with Varieties was for example chila which we decided that we're going to put it in heritage Other varieties too. So so it's not only these four. There's a lot of varieties. We're still working with reds Um, and we only work we've decided we're only going to work with Non-hybrid Variety, okay. Yeah, of course because there's plenty in Armenia Do you work with an institution in your clonal selection and identification of the varieties? Uh, no, uh, what we do is very basic It before harvest We look at the fruit. We look at the plant. We like it. We make a knot We come back here in springtime cut it Then we create of course our nurseries from scratch Then we go into the vineyard And most of the times we make mistakes. So we have to replant again this plant and replant again Obviously to do this. I'm not doing it. Just uh On the spot. I have my collaboration with my witty culture is Bartolome We have also analysis continuous analysis done in Tuscany Uh, so we but the progress and Is very very calm in Armenia very slow because as I say whatever we do even with chilar or with bosque around the mark There is no there is no precedent. So we we don't know which diet so everything and I'm very Perfectionist guy as a as a person So the progress is very slow, but I'm not complaining And for those who don't know uh, because zorek and zorek is Even though he's Armenian. He's uh grew up in Italy. So that's why the the task in reference and yeah Yeah, you're from sweden. I think you're Armenian, but you're Yeah, my mother's That's right. Uh, I I want to talk a little bit about building because uh You guys are on the road full time We're still following even though we haven't been to the winery in a few years See how hard you're working about building a break like a basically a brand new brand out of nothing I mean now you get a big break. I think you were top 10 wines in the world in bloomberg, right in 2012 or the 2010 Or any carass Can you talk that's a great story actually some people Can you share how that happened and then also we can start talking about What it take what kind of legwork it takes to build a brand Yeah, I mean, I must say that of course that was our uh, first recognition internationally and uh, it happened because we were in a blogger meeting And ellen mccoy from bloomberg, which we didn't know her by that time We did our presentation and we had our wine just out the wine was just out European wine bloggers Organized by ryan opas, which is a fantastic. Yeah, yeah Okay, and we were participating as with our wine just out six months with one wine Yes, I remember you tell everybody's got their portfolio. You just have one wine there Everybody had like five six wines countries were all sort of represented and then there was this little one table armenia Yeah, we got but that's uh matt that's the first Of course, it's very important for us But after that we got we have had continuous continuous recognitions and we are in a very Um We're very happy to uh To have this attention attention from masters of wine journalists and uh, they keep following us and it's giving us More motivation to do Not hundred twenty percent do it hundred forty percent That's taken a lot of time to sort of have these I mean for example I'll tell you a funny story where we came out with the wine and in England we had Liberty wines And uh, David leaves that to us. Okay, why don't you enter into the counter wine awards? And I was like, okay, sure and I went to the counter and it said okay country I was looking at Armenia. There was no Armenia So I thought okay What am I going to do? There's no Armenia. So I call up the counter and I say, okay I want to put in a wine from Armenia And they said, oh, no, no, no, you know, Armenia. Okay, we'll have to put it listed in Okay, so that it put it in Armenia as a country and then said great variety Arani there's no Arani So in the end that I kept calling this lady in the counter and she said, okay, wait, wait You send everything and I'll manually put it in So then after she said can you give me all great varieties and everything? So I sat there with the country and put in all the great varieties, RME and this and that. So the next year is when people started going in, they actually had RME, RME, BOSCALTA on the mark. So it was like, way, way at the beginning. So... Yeah, but Matt, giving an answer to your question about the recognition, obviously the key here is to have a clear and long-term vision. You have to be meticulous in your job and persistent and believing in what you are doing and ready to have the whatever it takes mentality right to your goals. First and foremost, the wine quality has to be of highest quality because over there that's the main thing, that's the main issue. Once you are convinced that you have made it and it's pleasing you, then you have to go around the world and spread the word and with the presentation, trips, etc., not save anything on, not financially, not physically, not... Especially, this is the case for Zora because being from Armenia, when I started nobody knew anything about Armenia. Luckily today, I can say a lot of masters of wine, masters so many years, little by little they know and I think RME is on the world map already as a high quality grape variety, but we have to keep doing and insisting on the same path. I wanted to ask because actually a lot of people that follow us actually are young aspiring wine makers, brand new brands, just starting or even consumers don't realize how much dedication it takes because we see you traveling all around the world. I have a random question. How much of the production when you're promoting like you do, do you accept a pour? How much of production are you actually basically goes into marketing for free? No limit Matt, no limit. For me, I'm also a proud Armenian so for me, of course this is a business but this is a kind of business, I'm sure whoever is in the wine world and is dedicated, not the gimmick guys or the shortcut guys or the guys who are really dedicated, you cannot fix budgets, you cannot fix limits and especially Armenia needs a lot of promotion because you have to be present wherever they invite me. I can do like three, four times flights of seven, eight hours in two months time, come and forth and back the same destination just to be sure that I'm present in the right moment at the right place. So no limit. Whatever it takes mentality as I said. What is the current production size now? We as a winery, we are more or less about 100,000. We are not arriving to 100,000. It depends on the year, we could be 70,000, 90,000, 80,000 but more or less we are there. We are sharing, I think I already told you that in my life quantity has never impressed me. If I have 100, you can have 101, Matt 100, 200, and we can go on. But the quality, the quality is the key to especially in the wine war. Quality is what is impressing me every day I wake up because if I have a better quality that makes my day more fantastic. And the next day I change quality but still good quality that is the key to success and enjoying the life. I want to shift gears a little bit because you actually have been working very closely with a pretty famous consultant Alberto Antonini. Can you talk about how you got together with him? What's it like working with somebody? I mean he's got a lot of this experience then he comes all the way to Armenia to work with a grape that nobody's heard about. There's probably not interesting stories there. Alberto is a fantastic human being before being a great winemaker. He's a good friend we are we know already we know I mean families are very close to us. So first of all as a human being he's a good human being, good father of family and he's got a fantastic family. As a winemaker Alberto I can say he's he's antithesis of the typical winemakers because before knowing Alberto obviously I've been around I've seen even today I see lots of winemakers not all of them but I can say they all feel superstars they all have this attitude that I know it all this egocentric to show that they know Alberto is completely opposite of this full of knowledge ready to learn every day because don't forget that when we started Alberto is for me contemporary world there is nobody more than Alberto but he had the humility to start and understand about R&E understand about carousels and he has been learning but backing me up with all his knowledge that he has around the world so he's been an important pillar in our project in Zora's project but I respect him because he has always respected my tradition my culture my country and he has even today we chill out our last invention he's always there he's not stopping he's just I tell you more I tell you this then I uh person with his knowledge when he says this is his word I am just a tool in your hand this you must be a great guy with great confidence to say this to say okay I I mean so this is the kind of person he didn't come to Armenia to teach he came to Armenia to learn actually learn and and to put his knowledge you know to our disposition say okay let's try and do this let's try and do this but I don't know maybe and he's always been open to talking to the locals to this he's he never came there saying okay now I'm going to tell you what to do in this country so I think I think that's the that's the key issue and we do appreciate him I think Zora's success is also because of the because of being open-minded he uh I read an article by where you did an interview and you told me a little story when you took you took a bunch of homemade wines out of a Renny to when you try to convince him to come work in Armenia I read an article and he said it was the worst tasting I ever had in my life but there was enough there to entreat me yeah I yeah he said he said this is the when he tasted all the wine since like really this is absolutely the worst tasting but he said if with R&E if the way you treat R&E the way people treat R&E in Armenia you can actually get to this quality as bad as it is it means that there is really great potential you can feel the potential so yeah yeah he's uh yeah we had good times we have started from scratch with him and yeah and still the adventure is young so we are young let's talk about what you started with was making a R&E you made one R&E in the beginning uh we tasted we've tasted a lot of it we had a whole I think we tasted everything to 2015 we missed 16 17 you just sent us 18 we tasted which was phenomenal uh then you started white and now you're starting this new brand you want to get the bottle out we just opened this and tasted it I wrote my tasting notes right before this heritage made out of chilar and tell us a story about the this project here to revive unique grapes from Armenia by the way this is fantastic this is a show to you too yes that's uh the label your label looks better than yours you know it's so it's so funny uh and you know all the all the tasting notes and everything married everybody says that after the tasting note beautiful label design they always say that with the taste that's not my part you know that that's uh that's next to me talking so from our manuscripts so there you go so this is I I'm sure I told you this is the letter z in Armenian yes taken from our manuscripts being a proud Armenian I wanted to have also my alphabet z for Zorah yeah this to me is really shocking because your first white that you made Vosky the Vosky hot and got on the back uh just you know you know classic white wine but this you macerated for 60 days why did you I what was the thought process behind everything behind everything in this wine which is phenomenal by the way it's phenomenal really I was blown away by how good it is yeah this is a skin contact starting the amphora with the skins around two months of skin contact then it carries on the aging goes around 10 11 months uh and then we bought so it's a native variety to Armenia Chilak as Yeraz was saying this is one of the varieties that we when we were doing both Vosky as a wine we were we didn't know if we were going to work with Vosky hot and garand mac at the start this was one of the varieties that we worked with and we kept it aside actually uh Chilar to make this wine we have been inside the rows because we didn't have vineyards dedicated to this great writing oh so you that kind of picks second he has to select them in the venue exact but now we have started to propagate it so it's so it was almost extinct I mean yeah and this is a new project Zora heritage project if you notice also the label is little bit heritage yes I think Yeraz will be because Yeraz will explain that about the heritage project so the concept is to bring forward a bunch of monomerized wines that we believe give you the potential of Armenia and grapes which are almost extinct they don't necessarily have to be within our region or that we have to plant them they can be from different regions of Armenia from north south wherever but we and so that they can give sort of a road map of the different varieties in different regions and but obviously we work closely with with farmers with whoever if we decide that it's not something from our vineyard our thoughts then we work very closely with them to understand so that they do exactly what we want to do those varieties that are that are grown in biot or then we propagate on our vineyards those which are not endemic to biot or stay wherever they are um and in this way we want to do a whole series of of the Zora heritage project and bring it on under one umbrella to to sort of as before with Armenia but in you are any now our enemies there we want to say that there is the both got there because all different varieties so that's the concept behind it so basically after a few years there will be a collection of Zora heritage wines and that will be the presentation of Armenia the grapes that in Zora's opinion they are worldwide for the wine lovers around the world to have as a taste of Armenia and they have to be native to Armenia of course that's what yeah how many do you have any like what you're experimenting how many how many different wines are you planning in the future do you have another one lined up or another variety yeah I mean we got we got lined up I mean this chilar was supposed to be the second one but in the way with the wine we were going to come out it was 110 percent so we kept it behind we came out with chilar yeah the experiments uh keep uh going on but as I as we did with our Zora project this is Zora heritage project as we did with Zora project nothing is rushed in Zora we have adapted fantastically to Bayozor written Bayozor climate so everything has to be slow with the of nature but the idea would be no limits it could be I don't know I cannot give you number but but it will not be just one two because already now we have two is boiling lots of uh and for example with this chilar we did it in the alfora because we felt that um yeah it was it went well with the alfora for example we're doing our bozki we didn't feel we felt that the alfora was taking over it was again wine wasn't becoming the one whereas the chilar reacts very very well with the alfora and surprisingly it's very very clear for yeah I mean sure you know sure and I talked about it because we talked with the universities there uh you know people working in the wine making school some of the big guys there in Armenia said that chilar has a lot of potential but I never tasted one all the time talk about it but nobody made it yeah we had never tasted one so uh you understand Q&A maybe yeah so we have a question here sorry you were going to say something go ahead I just wanted to I mean nobody can uh because we unfortunately we are doing it uh remotely but for me it was important here alfora is not the major player here I I'm sure you do agree there that the peach the apricot citrus and the stone fruits minerality are the king this this is chilar this is chilar talking for for me the for me the wonderful thing which I highlight my tasting note which the you'll see later I mean the wines are really the wines really impressive is the texture for wine you don't you don't besides the the actual wine yeah as you have a big untoasted cask but you have no wood in the in the wine tree which have been a couple of times just emformed cement but it still has the gritty uh a gritty texture of a wine that you would get in a in a barrel in a great barrel fermented white especially a great barrel from it did show me that gritty texture it's a little a little bit spicy as well smoky on the palate so I I think I mean I know that I've read a lot of people that have tasted this wine it's well received right you're pretty you're pretty happy with how this is out it's just out you are the one of first guys uh yeah thank you we do have uh uh actually we can go back back and forth we do have a couple of questions because for people that don't know uh like I just said you you only have like I think it's a 3 000 liter cask for for yeah right maybe two of them yeah that's the whole production that's the only thing that's wood besides it's just it's just concrete uh kind of big concrete for mentors and Karas and for us so somebody has a question yeah someone's asking about your what is the Karas situation like an Armenia who is producing it what is the difference between putting Karas on on on the ground and very under the ground very nice question okay as I say when I started uh Karas nobody was giving importance to uh Karas I give you a news that Europa Nostra is the cultural uh is the cultural voice of European Union has uh shortlisted Karas Armenian Karas as the tradition in verge of extinction one of the most uh seven endangered uh cultural traditions I see so we hope this brings more attention towards our Karas's our Karas's are our heritage that uh I don't expect all Armenia to age in Karas's but every time a winemaker starts to age in the Karas's gives me only happiness because I think that is that is one of the uniqueness of Armenia's uh winemaking and wine potential in Armenia now the guys we know the Trinity is making it in Moscow Moscow Moscow Moscow of course Moscow they have taken this direction um one or two are coming they're calling us and saying how do you do it so so hopefully you know some people will do it and as the condition there's um there's one or two elderly people who are making them but it's it's very difficult um they're not consistent they kick it and then they set it off somebody else or they make it and then they break it or they make it and they don't have somewhere to fire it um so uh yeah it's it's going to stick to the honest with you on that on this yeah Matt it's uh yeah it's so many years we are fighting in this direction I'm sure I told you I don't know if I told you or not we have also found the the uh foundation which is Karas project uh where we are going to revitalize the art of making amphoras the craftmanship of amphoras has to come back to Armenia that's our next project and we are already in collaboration since so many years uh with our Italian friends uh and I think we've understood that we have to uh work on the very young and start teaching them from the very young because you can't rely on on the older generations got it they don't they don't think that thing seriously so uh we have to sort of start from very young and from people young people who are interested in pottery and they teach them from from zero and so that's again a very long-term project we have the uh another the person asked kind of a wine making question about the Karas that also for people that don't know they are very different than the Georgian Quavery because materials are different the Georgian Quavery they line them the beans wax and are and the Karas are not they have like the the materials completely different because your soils are different but you make them with but the person wanted to know have you noticed the difference between fermenting wines with Karas that are not buried versus buried Karas? Yeah great is obviously if you don't bury the Karas the micro-oxygenation is faster uh you don't have the stability of the temperature because they are outside uh on the other hand if you have totally inside you have the temperature controlled of course because they are totally inside but you lose the inspection because once you bury that you don't know what's happening till you take them out that's why my forefathers were up there three thousand years ago if you go to uh if you look at the photos of uh army blue uh and that's the technique Zora is convinced that that's the right way uh my forefathers three thousand years ago they were already they took the best of all the words with three quarter inside you got the temperature stability with one quarter outside you got the temperature difference so you create movement in the alfara and then you got the inspection so you've got the best of all words after 20 years of uh dealing with Karas I think that's that's the future at least for Zora and I think it's important to say that um as in every country you know the traditions of Karas winemaking the technologies of Karas winemaking army are completely different to those of georgias as to those of portuguese as to so a lot of people just say oh yeah okay so just but no there's like there's uh fundamental differences so the shape of the Karas is also different the techniques are different um so it's it's yes it's uh making in clay uh clay pots but it is a completely different technology to uh the neighboring countries or to any or like the finachas or the atalia so you know we've got our own tradition which is very very important to to preserve because otherwise once we use that you know it's gone so we have another question here about uh are any somebody hasn't tasted or ready before how we describe what it tastes like or or the kind of wine that it makes uh first advice to go and buy right away right away as over Karas yes okay uh who's uh are any i think you will agree with me it's about red and black foods uh spices for me also mountain herbs my RNA is because it's high altitude the acidity is there so it is very food friendly and uh i'm talking about Zoro Karasi it's a balanced wine uh made for uh long time to to stay i mean the age ability is very good with Zoro Karasi are you able to compare Arany Noah to a more famous international grape variety in terms of how it tastes um i don't like comparison because uh RNA has got his uh specifics specified place in the wine world and uh i must say also i uh i must also make this clear because i hear in Armenia there are people who are mixing RNA because it's my fault i call it RNA noir they are mixing it with pinot noir RNA noir doesn't have this is uh this is not my work this is uh Nehushatez University has done with Jose Villamot they are coming in a profile of RNA RNA doesn't belong to any i mean RNA is 100 native to Armenia it's DNA it's not near to any other variety and as a grape is so old that Jose himself it calls it uh all from grape so they don't know who the parents are so there is no international relation we are so lucky to have our any in our Zork uh i must just do a do a small uh site uh viozor lately is very pleasing yeah viozor lately has huge reflectors on it and there are people coming to invest in viozor if these guys are seeing this uh message please respect viozor because viozor is not only the quintessential grape growing region in Armenia viozor internationally worldwide can be a fantastic can be a unique uh appellation that we don't have stick for our any yeah you've been around the world and it doesn't come to my mind any other appellation so small having so much history having this altitude being a philoxera free land and uh with lots of great variety a specific traditional aging method in a small place like viozor please whoever comes in is more than welcome but do not bring the grafting to viozor we have to respect because i know business wise doesn't make sense because the investor wants to have but whoever comes to viozor has to understand his entry in the sanctuary this is one of the very few places in the world that is philoxera free and on top of that has got all the surroundings that i say in one small place if you are worried about your money not the uh paid back or uh one day philoxera will come Armenia is has got other fantastic regions go to outside fantastic place philoxera is already there go there with international varieties do the grafting whatever you want to do or even with native varieties do the grafting over there or go to tavush another fantastic region they need if you want if you entered in uh viozor uh remember that we have inherited a unique te wat it's our duty to pass it to our next generation we are nobody to bring grafting in viozor because no matter who what they say in the grafting in a philoxera free land there is always a possibility of transmitting the disease no no matter how laboratories say but there is the possibility this was for my region i have to say well i and i'm not joking i during we we talk about the time when we talk tell people about it it's an amazing place when you're in the era at valor then you climb up the plateau and uh viozor is kind of of like land before time lost in time you have all these hidden vineyards on other small plateaus you have the high mountains it's really a magical place it's really untapped there's there's one hotel at the far end uh there's there's a couple small restaurants on the river there but credible place i call it the garden of Eden of video culture and areni has been there for millennia i give you another database for viozor you've been to Armenia you know that viozor is the highest elevation cultivation of great in Armenia and this is also in northern hemisphere we are one of the highest if not the highest being the highest altitude in Armenia not only Zorab all viozor nobody covers the crop during winter there are lower elevations in Armenia most of the places winter time they're obliged even if they work with native varieties of Armenia they are obliged to cover them because if not they lost the crop viozor is so fantastic being 400 600 meters above that level nobody in bios that means our great varieties have adapted fantastically to our micro please do not ruin it we'll put we'll put a banner yeah we'll put a bit of a bit so i have i think go ahead i'm sorry i'm sorry we have we have well i think one more question here because this could be a big topic is um this actually and actually you probably you're in malan currently right that's where you live you live a lot in half a year in in Armenia how is uh how is this current situation around the world affecting uh wine business just in general especially for a small boutique winery oh we will take our uh heat uh till now we haven't felt it but i think in future we will have our share of uh challenges uh we are not alone i mean all the world is suffering what i can do from my side just stay positive try to create new situations that can bring the damage at the more acceptable level but we are ready yeah we know that small wineries especially small wineries are going to take the worst heat uh that's why you have to keep uh drinking zora yes uh also a question about the progress of Armenian wine industry what do you think do you think that the current growth rate is healthy for Armenian wine or is there something that you would do differently to help the entire wine industry pushes itself forward for you as an Armenian person uh if i understood right you're asking if Armenia is moving in the right direction all right yeah yeah no Armenia is doing fantastically late last seven eight years there has been change in the in Armenia and i mean now we are locked down in Milano but every time i go to Armenia there are new wines new scenarios coming out which is more than pleasing uh as i say we have to understand Armenia is a small quantity wise as a land we are a small landlocked country i think the future of Armenia is towards high quality we have to come out with high quality wines we shouldn't do wine just for sake of doing wine it's not wine making for sake of doing wine making doesn't take Armenia anywhere and okay wine from Armenia doesn't take Armenia anywhere we are so small we don't have the luxury to make okay wines or just we have to focus to come out Armenia is supposed to be on a high segment on the world map i'm not a fundamentalist i understand that the country cannot do only high quality wines there are other players and that's good that's healthy but as a aim as a target Armenia is a winner if the liquid if the wine is right because we got it all in Armenia not only why it's also other regions of Armenia they have so many things to say to the world to the wine lovers of the world that uh it's enough for three four generations to come but we have to play it right no shortcuts no gimmicks we have to work for our liquid the wine has to be at high quality then we have to understand that it's a long-term project there's no you know as you said no shortcuts whoever goes into it they have to see the long long they really want to bring up our video great well answer your question very positive i mean that's great to hear sure we're longing to go back i'm sure you are too as soon as all this stuff clears up we're waiting you there yes yes we are we gotta make we actually we're planning maybe this year but uh with everything well everything's going we know yes i know i'm still waiting i want to go we're pushing our time so i'm gonna uh i'll sign off guys answer uh just leave any more questions everything in in description i'll try to answer them or i'll tag uh zorka diras and zora wines that can maybe help you out too uh you stay on for just one second before i sign off i'll say goodbye to say goodbye to you properly guys if you like the video you make sure follow our facebook page subscribe to our youtube channel exotic wine travel drink some zora wines because i mean they're a world world class i take i take them with me uh a lot we actually took them to a couple sommelier tastings in new jersey and new york city last couple years ago so uh guys enjoy and we'll see you at the next episode cheers cheers