Armenia foto, cognac tasting

Excursion at Ararat Cognac Company. One of the most professional excursion in Armenia.

Here, the golden drink is stored.

Wonderful excursion. Interesting and useful. I think the guide is telling the same story hundredth time. But you don’t notice it at all. She is so enthusiastic, as she is seeing a torusic group for first time. A professional.

Info board about company’s subsidiaries.

Many head of states and other personalities own private cask. They can open it in any moment.

One of the alley in cellar is named after a famous Armenian – Charles Aznavour.

Peace cask. It will be opened when Nagorno-Kharabakh conflict is solved. This is a case, when cognac masters when to open a barrel as soon as possible.

When drinking to much, a person is turning into this kind of monster. Everything in reason.

After excursion, of course the tasting. At 10 am. Our guide is telling us, it’s the best time to taste, as nose and tongue receptors have highest perception level.

Of course, in the company’s shop we can by the cognacs, but unfortunate only the most expensive ones. Cognac of 3 and 5 years, are not available. Fortunate, during our trip in Armenia, we did it in other shops.

Gluttony

Spring 2010

The friends inform us they found a charming farm camping. We see the sign and turn from asphalt road to gravy road. Small bridge and we arrive. It’s a small pitch for only for 4-5 campers. Just for us. A small man come and greets us – the owner. He is a farmer, growing pigs and ships. He is asking us if we want to have a dinner tomorrow. We immediately agree, where else can you try a real traditional Sardinian cuisine?

Next morning, we go to visit Orgoslo, a famous city for its walls paintings. Before we go for a visit, we get a small excursion at the farm. We cannot see pigs and ships, as they are grazing somewhere far. Pigs are in the forest of course. On Sardine, as on Corsica pigs are walking freely in the private forest that people own. This way, pig’s diet consists of all ecological and tasty forest things (from pigs point of view) – worms, bugs, leaves, mushrooms (maybe even truffles), clean water etc. Later, during dinner, we had possibility to appreciate its wonderful quality and taste. The best ever. 

We visit the farm building. The center of it is a square yard. We enter the yard through a small porch and see all around us walls of the house. On the left we enter the living room, on the right there are few rooms for accommodation. In front is a covered terrace, and small door with leads to storage room. Wow, in one room tasty hams are hanging from the ceiling, in the other - cheese is aging, in the other – young cheese, ricotta is made. We taste and buy some old and young cheese. Young cheese, ricotta we had possibility to taste before, on Corsica. There it is called brocciu. It’s usually served with honey. We fell in love with it.

After excursion to farms cellar, owner brings us to the living room. There, a big open fireplace is already on fire. In front of it, huge spits with meat are standing to roast. What it is? Young pig and lamb. Yummy. We are looking forward to our dinner tonight.

Visit to Orslolo is successful but it’s ending in a torrent rain. So we are glad we can come back sooner and wait for our much expected dinner. The pork and lamb is nicely roasted. The aroma of smoked myrtle tree is floating all over the room. We sit at a big rustic table. The feast is starting.

First of all we are served with home made red wine. Plates are taking their places on table. A big plate with Sardinian bred - plat, crunchy, tasty pancakes, a plate with cheeses of different ages, a big plate with charcuterie , smoked lards, meat and something white. What it can be? It’s pure fat! The smoked fat is cut into thin slices. We carefully taste it. It’s sooooo tasty! Of course, because it is fat, it is melting in our mouth, and we are overwhelming by the taste and aroma of smoked maquis herbs. It’s like the volatile taste and aroma materialized into fat and we have the honor to taste it in its pure form. 

Next round. Plates with vegetables. Pickled peppers, aubergine, green beans. We get some big leaves on the plates. ??? Fried sage leaves! The sage we saw at the entrance and were surprised by it’s size. Ohh, we are already full.

Our host is not done with us yet. Next course is coming. Pasta. Ravioli in tomato souse. We are greedy, so we cannot leave pasta. Another tasty dish of Sardinian cuisine.

The main dish! The host take big scissors for cutting tree branches, and begin to cut roasted pork and lamb meat into smaller pieces. Seeing appetizing chunks and inhaling meat aroma we forget about our full stomachs and decide to continue the feast. The meat is soft and juicy. We are sorry we ate so much before and cannot enjoy more of these Sardinian delights.

But the food torture is not finished. Fruits. Yummy, yummy oranges. Then we get a home made schnapps. Then tea and coffee. We are finished. Literally. God has all the right to punish us for gluttony. The pain in our full stomachs is already a punishment. We roll to our campers.

58 kilometers of underground wine cellars

Moldova, May 2009
Ivancea museum is closed for renovation, so I have to come up quickly with an alternative. My uncle’s winery was ten minutes drive, and as few times he invited me to visit it, I give it a shot. And yes, it is possible to come for an excursion on such a short notice. Small deviation from the main road, driving on the gravy road, through a surprising forest and here we are parking the campers in front of an iron gate.

The colourful guard, dressed in quilted coat let us in. Smell of wine, spirituous and grapes.
We stop in front of a big, dark hole, diged in the one of the building walls. A chilly wind is coming from depth of the cave. It’s dark there and not much can be seen.

We are waiting for our guide. There she comes, Galina. She is the technology manager and does not speak English, so I have to translate for the group. We start our excursion and adventure into the depth of the cave.
Enthusiastically Galina starts to tell company’s story. Branesti cellar is the second longest wine cellars in Moldavia – 58 kilometers. The cave is the result of cutting out the lime stone, which in Moldova is used in construction. Because of lime proprieties, the temperature in the cave is constant during the whole year, 12-16 degrees. Somebody had an excellent idea to use these caves to store the wine. On the ceiling you can still see mark from drilling machine.
We continue to go down into the darkness. It becomes cooler. Not much light, but we do not mind as it ads mystery to our excursion. The cellar goes little by little 60 m below ground level. The company produces wine and sparkling wine. Most of it is exported to Russia. At Branesti not only the wine is stored underground, it is also produced here. Of course production lines are Italian. Strange, so many Moldovan companies are proud to tell where from production lines are coming, as it influence wine quality. The line is just bottling the wine, doesn’t it? Along the production lines we see few women busy with bottle labeling. We visit room where the wine is stored. The room is fool with big, emailed, high cisterns. Some are full, some are cleaned and empty. Somebody asked about champagne production, better said sparkling wine, as nobody is allowed to use work champagne, except Champagne region itself. Production details follows, which I hardly understand and therefore hard to translate for me. The most important I remember is that the champagne bottles are turned by hand and not by a modern machine - there is nothing better than a gentle women hand.
Galina becomes more and more enthusiastic. Her speech is longer and longer. It becomes harder and harder to translate for me. Nevertheless the group becomes very found of our guide. The winery is not spoiled with much tourists, so when a group is coming, the personnel do their best. It’s nice to hear a true story and not just a text learned by heart in so many touristy wineries.
We ask how company managed after Russian government blamed Moldovan companies of delivering bad quality wine to their market. It’s a painful question. Galina is disappointed and angry with Russian government. It’s only politics. It has nothing to do with wine quality. Galina, with her usual enthusiasm tells us their Russian clients never had complains on Branesti wine, that company has a modern quality control system, according to which the wine is checked at all production stages – from receiving the grapes till labeling the bottles. Her words come from the depth of her heart so I believe her, and the whole group does.
Let’s leave political issues and let’s go to cheer up! It’s tasting time.
We go up on narrow stairs and low ceiling. One by one, still in half dark we continue our cave adventure. Steps end up in very small room, with one long table. We feel very cozy. Galina enthusiasm goes on as she tell all irons and wooden things in the room were made by an artisan from the village. Real local things. As we noticed the whole company is full of gems, one of them being Galina itself. Heart and soul. We taste white wine, red wine, wine champagne, red champagne. Group is surprised. Red champagne? There is no such thing in Western Europe. Maybe it is a rose champagne? No, red. In Moldova it is a very usual thing. Moldavians drink it mostly for celebrations and special occasions. Both champagnes are very good, fresh, nice aromas, bubbles biting softly our receptors.
At the end, Galina asked to taste also a glass of water. She is very proud of their water. Another story follows. In wine production process, technical water is used. The company used its own artisan water. One day, a guest mentions that the technical water was actually very tasty. The personnel did necessary analyses and indeed, water proved to be so good, that winery decided to bottle also water. We taste water. It’s very tasty, cold and sweet.

The tasting is over. Save god, we do not have to finish our excursion in a souvenir shop - so many people are tired of them. Still you can buy wines products. The group makes a list of desired products and Galina runs quickly to production lines to take necessary bottles. Some bottles even do not have labels. We do not mind. We care what it’s in inside. And the wine quality is very good, we just proved it. Boxes of red wine, white and red champagne, and of course Brancesti water are loaded into campers and we say good buy to this authentic winery, authentic people, authentic products.