📍 Vayots Dzor

Vayots Dzor is a mountain province in southern Armenia and one of the country's main wine areas. Its centre is the town of Yeghegnadzor, and the best-known wine villages are Areni, Rind, Getap and Aghavnadzor. Vineyards sit high, often more than a kilometre above sea level. Summers are hot and dry, nights cool, winters cold.

The main grape is Areni, a local red variety with thin skins. It gives wines with a cherry flavour, a soft structure and noticeable spice. It is named after the village of Areni, near which lies the Areni-1 cave. Remains of a winery about six thousand years old were found there, regarded as one of the oldest known places of winemaking in the world.

Alongside this ancient tradition, modern estates work here too, so bottles include both reds and whites, as well as fruit wines made from pomegranate and apricot.

For comparison with its neighbours: to the north-west, closer to Yerevan, lies the Ararat Valley with warmer vineyards, and to the east the high-altitude Syunik, where the climate is cooler still.