There’s no need to change what we’ve written in the past when the grape, terroir, and wine is this fascinating. All I’ll add is that you’ll never forget Zorah’s Karasì, and today’s 2019 is the greatest of the four vintages I’ve tasted. The ancient grape is Areni Noir, the country is Armenia, and the wine is legend.
Steven Spurrier and Jancis Robinson hold it in extremely high regard, Bloomberg considers it “one of the best wines in the world,” and we have watched in awe as “Karasì” has thrice been among the most successful esoteric offers we’ve ever rolled out. Its ability to channel a dizzying number of deliciously exotic and pure flavors from Europe’s top regions is certainly a major reason why but there’s much more brewing beneath the surface. Namely, an indigenous grape that’s been vinified for 6,100+ years; an ungrafted monastic vineyard perched under the eye of Mount Ararat; and the discovery of what is considered the world’s earliest-known winery is what truly elevates Zorah’s “Karasì” into rarefied, singular air. It’s for wine connoisseurs, history buffs, geography geeks, thrill-seekers—anyone who wants to discover the irresistible allure of an ancient wine treasure. In short, it's one of the most important and enchanting bottles of red you’ll ever experience.
Zorah was founded in the 2000s by Zorik Gharibian, an Italian-Armenian who abandoned an auspicious fashion career in Milan to return to his roots. With Mount Ararat looming in the backdrop, Zorik was immediately drawn to the volcanic soils of Vayots Dzor, so he began building a winery in the rural town of Rind and planting various grapes at elevations of 4,600 feet. After years of experimentation, he found that an indigenous grape known as Areni Noir performed best in this terroir, so he began channeling his energy towards it with the assistance of one of Italy’s most prominent winemaking consultants: Alberto Antonini. As fate would have it, a literal next-door discovery revolutionized everything just a few years later.
In the late 2000s, a UCLA research team went deep into the highlands of Armenia’s Vayots Dzor and discovered the remains of a 6,100-year-old winery, the world’s earliest known wine production site. They found rudimentary wine presses and crumbling fermentation jars, all of which were covered in brittle grape stems/seeds/pips that were traced to, of course, Areni Noir. Zorik had not only built his winery across the way from the world’s oldest winery, but he was also planting and bottling the very grape they were producing all those millennia ago!
All of Zorah’s vines have been selected from the cuttings of an unused vineyard located next to a local 13th-century monastery. Since these vines are buried in sandy soils and are perched at such a high altitude (around 5,000 feet), all of them are ungrafted, as phylloxera cannot survive in these conditions. After hand-harvesting the Areni Noir into small baskets, the grapes were de-stemmed and sent to ferment naturally in epoxy-free concrete tanks. The wine is then aged 12 months in amphorae, or karas (karasì = “from amphorae”). These karas are wax-sealed and buried underground to ensure a steady temperature during maturation. Afterward, the wine is blended together and bottled, where it ages an additional six months before leaving the winery.
Zorah's 2019 Areni Noir spills into the stem with a deep ruby-purple hue and emits some of wine's most soulful, pure, and vibrant aromas: fresh violet, blue plum, black raspberry, goji berry, red cherry, and crushed stone. Given a 20-minute decant, it dazzles even further with Burgundian perfume and elegance while revealing a twist of exotic spice, struck flint, and white pepper—not unlike the great wines from the Canary Islands or Galicia. The palate is sweeping and vivid, providing energetic berry fruit wrapped around a churning core of crushed minerals. As the wine opens, its savory flavors refuse to subside, creating a wonderfully lifted, 20+ second finish that will keep you returning to your glass until the bottle's depleted. This can be enjoyed now and over the next 3-5 years, but if you're looking to stow some away even longer, I say do it—this ’19 has the structure and energy to last!
