Some places make wine. A few understand it, where the slope, the season and the stone all have a say in what ends up in the glass. Ampuis, on the banks of the Rhône, is one of them. Aghavnadzor, high in Vayots Dzor, was one of them long before anyone thought to write it down.
We believe Armenian wine should be valued for what is in the glass. We believe Areni, our native grape, can stand beside the great reds of the world when it is grown with discipline and care. We would rather prove that with our work over the years than claim it with words.
Saromm Grounds is engaged in vine growing, wine-making, research and in future in hospitality as well, each field feeding the others.
Saromm Grounds farms two vineyards, and each holds half of our story. The first sits high on the mountain above Aghavnadzor. We planted it ourselves on a rocky, abandoned slope, and for five years we have tended and harvested it organically, selling every grape so the young vines could root deep before we asked them for wine. Up there, the altitude, the cold nights and the wind off the peaks do much of the work.
The second is one of the oldest vineyards in the region. Village records trace it to the 1860s, and the families of Aghavnadzor remember it for longer still. When it came to us, we began returning it to organic farming, the way it had worked for most of its long life, the patient habits these vines knew long before we arrived.
One vineyard is our future. The other is our inheritance, and our work there is to give it back its past.
