May 27, 2025 • 56 mins
If you have thought about entering the wine trade but really don't think you would be much of wine winemaker...but you really feel like you are going to love it. It actually took me many years to "love" it but hear this story. Armen is getting ready to quite his day job... head down and make it work. And you know, it is working.
Armen Ghazikhanian didn’t so much dive into the wine business as wander in with curiosity, a keen palate, and a spreadsheet in his back pocket. You’ll come away from this episode with more than just a newfound respect for Armenian wine; you’ll discover how a career in finance can lead to the art of curating bottles that carry centuries of culture and a whisper of volcanic terroir. Armen reveals how his passion-driven side gig, Cork and Bottle, was forged as much by personal connections and boots on the ground in remote Armenian villages as by business school savviness—only to discover that the wine industry plays by its own rules entirely. Along the way, you’ll learn about the surprising renaissance of Armenian winemaking after the Soviet era, why indigenous grape varieties like areni and voskehat are turning the heads of wine judges and sommeliers, and what happens when you take a risk importing unknown bottles to the US, hoping they don’t just satisfy your friends but spark conversation in wine shops and restaurants across California. Through anecdotes of smuggling bottles, weathering the red tape of international logistics, and winning unexpected gold at wine competitions, Armen shares what it means to balance romanticism and reality in the wine trade. Hosts and listeners alike will come away with a deeper appreciation for how wine isn’t just a drink, but a powerful carrier of memory, tradition, and entrepreneurial risk—all told with Armen’s self-effacing humor and Paul’s insider understanding of the business. And if you’ve ever wondered whether a grape from the South Caucasus can go toe-to-toe with a California cab, this episode might just send you to the nearest shop asking for a bottle of “Areni”—even if you’re not quite sure how to pronounce it.
#WineTalksPodcast
#ArmenianWine
#CorkAndBottle
#WineImporter
#WineCulture
#PassionToProfession
#IndigenousGrapes
#WineBusiness
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is a hobby and this is where my
passion lies. And sometimes your passion, it just
ignites and it just. You get deeper and deeper. And as
you said, wine industry is something that the more
you learn, the more you realize that you don't know.
Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks
(00:22):
with Paul K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with
Paul K. And we are in studio today about to have a conversation with Armin
Gazet Ganyan of Cork and Bottle. Introductions in
just a moment. Hey, have a listen to a show that I did recently with
Chad Luddington. This guy, I mean, he's got a
PhD, two masters, I don't know how many bas, but he's a
(00:43):
historian. But a wine historian. It's a
fascinating conversation. Have a listen to that. But not while we're here. We're here to
have a conversation with Armin at Cork and Bottle. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. Good to see you After. How long has it been
that we saw each other? It's been about six months now. Right. Well,
we get around to the stuff once in a while. Yeah. It just seems like
(01:04):
yesterday. Well, we met at. At Guinea Fest, which, of
course, for the listeners. Guinea means wine in
Armenia. And then there's a local festival in Los Angeles that. That
highlights Armenian wine is turned into other products as well now. But
I have to tell you something. When I was there, I tasted every
wine that was there. It was about 75 total.
(01:27):
But that's work, work, work for me, you know? Yeah.
And I had not heard of Cork and Bottle at the time,
wasn't part of the regular mainstream distributors of.
Of wine. I was so impressed with the quality and
this and the curating. You know, it's kind of a
tough word to use in our business, but it's the curating of your
(01:50):
list. So. But that's not your day job.
No. Or it wasn't your day job. It seems like
it's about to be my day job. Yeah. Good. It's
growing on me now. Well, I could wish. I could wish you
nothing but good luck in getting into this industry. Good luck,
meaning I hope that it works out for you because it is a fabulous industry.
(02:13):
Yes. And it turns you on to so many different parts of culture in the
world. But. But what do you do then, normally?
Well, I've been in finance business for 20 years. Oh,
I see. Working fin. For, for and in financial
institution, corporation. So it's been a
great journey in that sense. And I'm still
(02:35):
in that industry currently self employed.
And but yeah, so I worked a lot with business
owners and helped them advise
them about business finance and access to
capital and loans
and all the types of everything that business owners
(02:58):
they may need depending on where they are
with J.P. morgan. And you know, that's. And I have
a similar background. I was with corporate America, my wife was with corporate America. We
both became wine in the wine trade. But
has that experience at JP Morgan set you up
(03:18):
for A, being in your own business, which is now
only a few months old and B starting something from
scratch? Well, yeah, I mean
that experience was hands on.
It's not something that you can learn at school, you can
go to the best schools, but read all these great books. But nothing
(03:41):
compares to being hands on, doing something that you really
enjoy and love. And that's what my passion was in
and is, is helping business owners helping people
grow and in what they do and what
they're passionate about. And my expertise was in business and working
with business owners. So some were
(04:03):
just launching their businesses, some were
semi few years in their
business and some were already matured in their business so
they were winding down. So I've seen business owners in all the
stages of their business and what the struggles are and also
the economy. I mean I was in finance when
(04:26):
2007, 2008, I saw what happened.
Right. And then 2013, 14. So I've seen all the
cycle, life cycle for business owners, what they do and successful business
owners, what they do, how they protect themselves and those people that
basically, unfortunately they can't
(04:46):
handle the economy or the flow of the business and
they fail, but they come back again. So it was a
great experience and I think that gave me a
great hands on experience of one day if I'm going to have
my own business, what to do and what not to do. But again, you never
know until you start your business and it's always a little bit different.
(05:09):
Well, nothing can be more true than that in the wine business.
Totally. So I'm going to sort of throw this at you because it is
a business that seems to be immune from what would be
traditionally business school tactics. What you
get out of the books like you talked about, I think
(05:29):
wine is very similar to that in that you can read all the books about
Bordeaux and Burgundy, but until you go there and smell the dirt and taste the
wines, you know, it doesn't really help you that much. But did you find that
so far? And we're going to talk about the cork and bottle right now, but
did you find that some of those lessons Maybe didn't
apply or pieces of them applied and some didn't.
(05:50):
In the wine business? Yeah. Coming from finance on the wine business.
Well, it was not a conscious effort, more or less.
It was more of a passion for me. It was more of a hobby for
me. That's all. It started as a hobby a couple of years ago. The wine
side. The wine side, Yeah. I mean I was, I'm an
Armenian heritage
(06:11):
ancestors and I'm originally from Iran.
There's a big Armenian community, diaspora.
I like my wife, yeah, we've been there for 500
years and I've been in the US for about a little bit over 40
years. And so for me
it was more of whenever I went to Armenia. Recently I
(06:34):
started going back to Armenia since 2011. That was my first time when
visited in Armenia and I just loved the
hospitality and the people and it was very welcoming
and the food is amazing and the people are great.
And for me it was like again coming home in a way,
feeling that everybody speaks Armenian in the streets and such.
(06:58):
And I tasted the authentic Armenian wine
for the first time. When was that?
2011, 2014 and
16. And I went back six, seven times since then. But
every time I went there, I tried this authentic Armenian wines
and I'm like, oh, I wish I could find these also
(07:21):
in the US and the US has great Armenian wines,
needless to say, but there are always this micro wineries,
mom and pop and family owned, but they don't get
exposure. And I'm like, okay, well
I'm going to take five bottles with me. That's the limit.
If any friends come over from our event, hey, can you get me a couple
(07:44):
of more bottles if not trouble. And
that's how I got those wines. And
slowly I was like, okay. Cork and bottle was a
passion that I started and out of, not so
much out of the business, but making money or anything like that behind
it because I was already fine in my industry.
(08:09):
It was more of I was trying to help a lot of business here. I've
been always helping a lot of business owners here, startups, and watch them
mature. And I want to take some of that passion and apply
it to those winemakers and
what product, what service that
can I help in Armenia that is
(08:31):
international, that brings joy to people,
brings people together and that's all about what I like to do.
I like to interact with people and have a seat and enjoy my time with
them, talk great talks. And so wine
goes back historically as a great product of
Armenia and we, we are proud of it. How original.
(08:54):
We are going back to 6,100 years. You know, let me stop it for a
second. That. Sure. You said something important. And I, and
I. That's the first time I've heard it said the way you said it, and
I used it. Recently, I, I was asked to write a quote about,
about food and wine. And I said, you know, historically,
wine is probably the most
(09:15):
historical reflection of culture there is.
Because if you were to pick, if you were to pick five things that a
culture might represent, you would say a language, which we have, you would say land,
which we currently have, but you would say food would be a
identifier of all cultures. And wine, if they have it,
those are the things that represent a culture. And that's kind of interesting because
(09:37):
you said it the same way. Yeah. And the wine is not
perishable like the food is. Right. Okay. You can go to any country, enjoy the
food and have an appetite, have that flavor of that
fruit, that vegetable from that country. But you cannot bring in
the US the same apple is not the same as apple here,
but the essence, the juice from grape,
(10:01):
what you get over here is transferable here. And it represents that
same culture. Yeah. And it represents, and the wine
has all the elements. It has the effect of the sun,
the heat, the air, the water, the minerals. You get everything from
that country, whether it's Armenia, Georgia,
Hungary, France, Italy. But I'm
(10:23):
proud to be, to be able to bring that flavors
here in the US through the Coke and bottle. I was there in 07,
and unless we just drank the wrong Armenian wines,
nothing was palatable. And it's already been, you know, 1990 was
freedom. Of course it takes, you know, wine is a very slow industry, so it
takes years for technology to catch up and bring it in and bring winemakers
(10:45):
that know what they're doing. Yes. And so if you're there 2011 or 14 and
you're starting to taste things that feel like win wine, because the stuff I tasted
didn't taste like wine. You know, that's a pretty amazing
advancement in, in culture. And
it goes back to the idea that really the Armenians
were stalled during the Soviet time and
(11:07):
so. And they got unleashed. Yes. And we've had this
conversation before with many winemakers, but that was a fast
release. I mean, they really ramped up. And I think some of the stuff I
tasted with you and other wines that come from there are, can be
or should be world class wines. So here you are
organically helping your friends possibly get a bottle
(11:30):
of Armenian wine because you Smuggled it in. So.
But, but that's a lot different than like, okay, I'm going
to start an LLC or subchapter s and I'm going to figure out how to
get the logistics going. And I'm going to go back to Armenia and find some
winemakers that want to be represented in the US and go through
TTB approval. All that stuff. Yes. Were there things that you,
(11:52):
that you didn't expect or there. All these things were just challenges
because you've been in an industry that's very challenging anyway and you just, it regulated.
Yes, it was just part of the game.
And that's another aspect of my profession, my day job profession
is being in this business of working with different industry
people. And the 20 years in the business with, in
(12:14):
finance and come across all these business owners with different lines of business.
I had a lot of connection,
people who knew people who are in industry.
And when I asked them, and this is what my passion is and
what I would love to do and
graciously they offered, hey, let me introduce you to this person
(12:37):
that imports wine from France. Let me introduce
you to this person that imports wine from,
that does logistics. Let me introduce you to this
person. So that connection right there, I would have not been able
to do as fast as what I did without that
connection. So again, it wasn't so much about reading,
(13:00):
going online and asked. It was more of
people talking to people that are actually doing it or getting
connected through people who are able to connect you with those people.
So that is key and that has been the key for my
success. I would love to say that to. This day, I
can't imagine starting from with the Internet
(13:24):
in Googling to figure out how to do this. Yeah, no, I mean almost
impossible. And I've used consultants all these years.
Everything I've had, you know, I've dabbled in all parts of the business and
man, what a, you know, the headwinds must have been. Were they daunting
where you're like, oh, I don't think I'm going to do this kind
(13:44):
of thing. I was like, no. It's just, you know, again,
it wasn't for me that, okay, I'm going to
do this. And. Here it is.
I'm dropping everything and I'm going to start the Coke and bottle
imports. It was a process. It was okay, take one step at
a time. I'm not going anywhere. I already have a
(14:07):
day job. It pays the bills, feeds the family. I'm
fine. This is a hobby and this is
where My passion lies. And sometimes your passion,
it just ignites and you get
deeper and deeper. And as you said, wine industry is something
that the more you learn, the more
(14:30):
you realize that you don't know. Yeah,
it keeps going and it's evolving, it's
changing. Winemaking is not the same as
even 2010
or 500 years ago. So flavors change, palace
change, people's priorities. Were you surprised when you got to
(14:52):
Armenia, what you found? The quality of the wines, the variety
of the wines, the philosophical approaches.
And I was surprised about the varieties of the wine
grapes that I never heard before. I mean, all
of them. Never heard before. All of them. I mean, indigenous grapes. And that was.
(15:13):
Even hybrids, which is really fascinating. Exactly. And for me,
that is. That was a discovery of.
It just opened me up to a whole new world. Because I love wine. I
drank wine. I socialized a lot with friends and
we drank wine. But, you know, I always like everyone else. You start with
Merlot, Cabernets, Pinots, California wine, and
(15:36):
evolving to other countries. But. And
I appreciate it. I appreciate all those. And I
thought, hey, why don't I appreciate the Armenian wines and see the
Armenian grapes, what the varieties are. So every time I went there, little by little,
I'm like, okay, what is this wine? And there are a lot of Armenian micro
winery stores that are. There are great
(15:59):
stores. And you sit down and you do wine tasting.
And I'm like, oh, I love this, but it's not available. I love this, but
it's not available, the brands. And
so I would come back and I'm like, okay, just
take it with you. Until. Another thing that
motivated me was a friend of mine that
(16:21):
he is opening up a store in Burbank,
a wine store. And as you know, the
US Wine import producing and import and
distribution and sales is a tiered based. Yes.
So when
he said he's going to open up a store and I thought about it, I'm
(16:43):
like, okay, so if you can open up the store, anything I bring,
can you carry it? He's like, sure.
Actually, let me stop there a second. Good friends,
relatives, a certain extent, the Kasabians. Diko
Kasabian has a little vineyard in his house in the Valley, and he
now buys grapes and makes wines under the brand. And
(17:07):
when his wife went out to go sell, she went into a
liquor store or wine shop in their part of town. And the guy said,
you're my friend. I'm going to put the floor. I'm going to put the wine
in. I give you a floor stack. Yeah, but it's not going to sell
because no one's ever heard of it. Nobody walks in here looking for
Kasabi and Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. So it's your job.
(17:29):
Meaning you. Yes. To go out and tell people that this exists.
Yes. So that they come into my store or, you know, and
this is a huge shift in the industry in California, for sure, and I'm sure
the nation. But, you know, distributors,
they'll take on a brand as long as it's being
sold. They're not going to go build the brand for you anymore. So
(17:51):
you. You have to go build the brand. Now, you're on both sides of the
fence now because you are the distributor. Yeah. So you got to find somebody to
build the brand. But the wine shop guy, now maybe in your case, as a
friend, he'll hand sell the wine. Oh, by the way, come over to this section.
You know, come over to Armand's section. We'll sell you one of our men's wines.
But for the most part, it's kind of your job to tell people
that this exists. Yeah. And that's why
(18:15):
I'm not saying that. Okay. Just importing and put it in store, and that's
it. My commitment is, when I speak with my
producers is I'm putting. I'm going to put the effort into it.
And I have. Starting from Guinea Fest, we
had the sample tasting, and it was before even the product was landed
in us. So those samples that you tasted, all. Those wines I tasted. Yes.
(18:37):
They weren't here. They weren't here yet. They were the samples. Wow. I didn't. I
didn't. I didn't know that. I didn't get the. I didn't get the actual product
because. Because the shipment from Armenia takes about. It took me
two and a half to three months to arrive in
US from the port. This is an interesting problem. Let me stop you again. I'm
sorry to interrupt. Yeah, sure. You're, You're, you're, you're touching on
(18:58):
things that I had forgotten about or that I hadn't had to deal with for
a long time. And one of those was I had an imports license.
I have seven licenses still. Yeah, alcohol licenses. And I got them
for all various reasons. My import license wasn't to bring. Bring wines in.
It was to bring in other stuff, but I would never use it
to import wine. Why? Because I wanted the importer
(19:21):
to take the risk. Because there was. There was a risk, and there has
been, even from Europe, that what you ordered wasn't what you get
for the listeners. This was not an uncommon. There was a whole
issue years ago with the Italian wines that were filled with antifreeze kind of thing
that they've been cut with antifreeze. But so I always relied on
the importer. I love to pay them their cost per case
(19:43):
or their clearing costs, knowing that when it landed in my
warehouse, if it wasn't what I ordered, if what was in the bottle was not
what I tasted. Yes. That I say, I'm not paying
you. Take it back. And that happened four times in my career. So it's not
a lot after 35 years. But were they what you
ordered? Yes. All of them? Yes.
(20:04):
Wow. They were. Because I did do
diligence. Again, the idea was there, the
passion is there, but again, you have to do what you have to do.
So I went to Armenia myself when
things got serious, where I had to choose the wines that I wanted
to import. I interviewed, went to the
(20:26):
wineries, met all the family members, met the
people behind the wine. Some of
them are four hours away, some of them are two hours away, some of them
are one hour away. I sat in a taxi, they took me over there and
I went, met, shook hands, looked the folks in their eyes
and looked at the fields, and I said, okay, this is authentic. This
(20:48):
is what it is. And they're serious. It's not like some. Some
person putting wine together in the
attic or. Or a room next door.
So, no, I mean, I did do those diligence, due
diligence. And. And they do. And these folks,
these producers, they do want to get their wines out there.
(21:11):
They're passionate about that wine. They're. They put their. I
mean, I'm working with a family, Maran family winery.
They've been. That's been in their blood since
1800. Pretty much the end of water wine. Right. What's that? They had
the wine that they age underwater. I'm
not sure. Modern, right?
(21:34):
Modern winery? Yeah. Oh, yes, yes. They have the underwater one. Yeah.
Right. Yes. He came to my.
We did a dinner together or something for them in assembly. Yeah, they
do. They store the bottles under the water? Yeah,
certain time. Because I don't know much about that process,
but apparently the water is around the
(21:58):
wine, the temperature and everything it gives. I have a
bottle at the house. I haven't opened it yet. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's very
delicate. It's very interesting process, but really I.
Since I could not import it because of the guidelines
and requirement and compliance, because there are some standards for those
type of wines. We could not. So.
(22:20):
But, but yes, that's the family. But that's. I mean, that's a
well known brand from this. So that was. For you to land that brand as
a distributor is pretty. Yeah. And. And serious. Yes.
They had a couple of lines here already for another importer, but
I pretty much brought in the wider portfolio and. Which I'm bringing
in as well. And it's been accepted very well. As a matter of fact,
(22:43):
few of my wines. And you mentioned how do I promote
it. And my commitment to my producer is like, listen, I take on
promoting your products, putting the word out there about Armenian wines,
Armenian grapes, and educate our folks,
whether here in town or doing events or such.
So in February, I attended
(23:06):
Wine and Spirit Wholesalers America. Oh,
wswa. Wswa, yes. They hate me. Back in
the old days. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because direct to consumer stuff was like circumventing the
wholesalers of the world. So I attended that trade show in
Colorado. So I went there, I
promoted the wine
(23:28):
and it was just a weekend or a
weekend process. So it wasn't a big deal. It's just a very powerful
organization. Yes. Just took a couple of days off, attended
and came back next day, get back to work, day
job. But that's what it was, you know.
And my wines
(23:51):
won awards. Our producers won award gold and silver awards
at the competition. I don't remember that. They had some kind of
tasting. They did. They had a panel. They did the tasting.
And three of my wines won awards gold. And
that feels pretty good, huh? If it made me a lot. It gave me a
lot of confidence about our product, about our producers and the
(24:14):
quality of wine you were talking about. Right. As a matter of
fact, my wine is also one or my producer's wine
via my importance cork and bottle import. They won also
awards at the Los Angeles International Wine Company.
The fair. The fair. Wow. That is. That is. Like I said, it's the
(24:34):
largest. It was the largest independent tasting in the country. I don't know.
So like 2500, 3000 wines. Yeah. So do you. We won
awards as well. Congrats. That's really good. I'm gonna be
there next week for some wine tasting
at the fair. You know, in the old days, we used to set up
this business. Really got started in
(24:56):
1984. Yeah. Even though my dad was doing the 70s,
it jumped in 1984. And I told you that it's because the LA.
The LA County Fair called him. And they used to have a bill. It was
Building four, which was the only Air conditioned building in the whole place back in
the day. Yes. And it was all wine and county stuff,
right? And they said, we, you know, my
(25:18):
dad inquired maybe a month before the fair and they sell out the booths,
you know, a year ahead. Anyway, he says they call him, if you can
stock a 24, a 20 foot by 20 foot booth, like
decorate it, you can have it for free.
So he shows up with my mom, you know, they're 12 hour days to work
those booths at the LA County Fair. He's right across from the tasting,
(25:40):
the Gold Medal tasting bar. Oh, wow. Where you go and pay to
what you're going to do when you go. And people saw the sign, Wine
of the Month club. They signed up and he doubled his membership in 20 days.
And he goes, wow, this is going to work. And here's. Here you are, show
up at wwa, you win some awards, you go, hey, this might work. Yes. It's
kind of like the way this industry is, because you don't know. How are you
(26:01):
supposed to know? Exactly. So what's going on? I was at
momad, I don't know if you know, moment. The restaurant. Oh, yeah, okay.
And he and I was just there the other day and we were talking and
he was, he was saying that his bottle sales
of wine have gone down considerably, which is not unusual
in the trade. Wine sales are down in general and here at the
(26:24):
restaurant. And so he decided, and that's why I brought up partially as
something for you to go pursue as well as just the idea, the concept of
what he's doing. He's, he's Mediterranean food, but kind of
not sort of. He's just a nice fusion of Mediterranean flavors
in his food. And he's redoing his whole wine list and he's
going to go all Mediterranean. He's getting rid of all the standards. He's getting
(26:46):
rid of the Austin Hopes and the Silver Oaks and the Cuses, all that stuff
going. And his whole list is going to be strictly
probably some of your wines, hopefully of wines from, from
Armenia, maybe some from Lebanon, who knows? Yes. And I thought. Have you
seen the questions? Have you seen this kind of
sweeping move for wines of unusual
(27:08):
places? I mean, here you are, you're on the streets now trying to sell some
stuff. And what's the, let's go back a little bit. What's the general
comment you get if you walk into Total Wine?
Are you crazy or are you.
No, I mean, I've been interesting. I mean, I've been very fortunate
to come across very Positive feedback
(27:32):
from wine tasters or those in the
industry or those folks that are decision makers for
the stores that they carry my wine or they will carry my wine.
The most positive feedback is an order. Yes. Right. Yes. And
also it's an order. But again, they do the tasting. They're
(27:52):
like, hey, this is unique. This is different. What is
this kind of grape? Is this. Just educate them a little bit about
that, and they decide to carry
it and put it in part of their international wine
shelves. And again, that gives me
very good feeling to know that I'm the
(28:15):
first one having an Armenian wine in that store. Yeah, that's
huge. I mean, I'm really impressed with that, being able to do. How about
getting those appointments in the first place? Word of mouth,
doing events like what I did events like that
yesterday. Last Thursday, I was at
Glendale Business Summit.
(28:37):
There was a great turnout of business owners in Glendale and
at a table giving out samples. And
it was amazing event. Very good event and very good
turnout and people. My table was the
busiest table. Obviously, bring. Yeah.
Wine brings people together. I think you've learned that part about the wine business.
(29:00):
Right, Right. And that was. That was great to see that.
And again, very good feedback. Very interested
people. And a lot of people were like, wow, what is this? What is this
different grape? And because those. It's not your. With all the
respect. It's not your Cabernets. It's not your Chardonnays. It's just
different grape. And it's just like you're trying the first time, I don't know,
(29:22):
Sushi, your first time, you're trying Thai food or. Yeah. So it's just a
different palette, and that's what I compare it to. That's interesting.
What. I had this question the other day, and it's. It's not. It's not an
easy question, because describing wines,
you know, it's very subjective to the set of, you may sense,
you know, fennel and I may not, or you may sense raspberries, and I may
(29:45):
not. So that's that part. When people say wine's subjective. I don't think
the evaluation of good wine is subjective, because good wine is good wine. And I
think everybody recognizes it. It's the character, you know, it's like
trying to describe it. And so somebody always asks, well, what is Ottomany like?
Is it like Pinot Noir? Is it like Syrah? What's it like? And that's a
tough question. And I always say it is actually light in structure,
(30:07):
like Pinot Noir, but it's big in flavor, like a Zin or
Syrah word. There's, you know, even though it looks light in the glass,
it's got some backbone to it. Yeah. And so do you. Do you.
Do people respect that when you. When you first taste them, they've never
tasted this variety before. Yeah. And they kind of go,
whoa. I've never had this. Like, last night, I opened a tannat from my
(30:30):
wife, and she. She's a Bordeaux person. Open a tannat, she goes, this is different.
Yes. I mean, people like to say different. It's
different now. Different. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting
good or interesting bad? I hope Interesting good. But when they say, can I
have the second sip? I'm like, I think it's an interesting good. Can I. Can
they come back for the third sip? Yeah, that makes sense. I'm like, I think
(30:51):
this is really good. I'll buy that. So
I just go based on that, you know? And there's so much you can explain
about the wine and the flavors and the background of
the grapes and the historic significance of it and where the
RNA comes from and what is compared to.
Comparison to, as you mentioned, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, and.
(31:14):
But again, at the end of the day is like, you have to try it.
You have to experience it, because
you. You don't know until you don't know what. You don't know
until you try it, and then you realize, oh, this is a whole new
world that you just opened up for me. Now, today could be
RNA made by,
(31:37):
let's say, Crows Rock or Maran or Gerani
or such. Tomorrow could be, let me try
Voskevas grape. You know, let me try
Garas. So
it's the same grape, different producers, and each one has its
own expertise. And for me,
(32:00):
just. For me to be able to introduce R and E grape or
Kangun grape or a Hafta nut grape for the first time to
Paul, and then Paul's gonna try something else with the same
grape but somebody else's brand. For me, that's still a very
good feeling because, again, it opens up a different
area of
(32:23):
exposing and introducing indigenous Armenian grapes.
You kind of. You answered a question I didn't even ask. You're pretty good at
this, huh? It's just the flow, I
guess. Sorry. No, it's not. It's very funny, because
just look at that picture right there. There was probably a bottle on the wall
back then. It was called Hickory Ridge. And that would
(32:44):
certainly lend you to believe that it's a wine from America, and it was
moldavian and so what they were trying. And they didn't put the name of the
grape on it, it was a Moldavian grape. Because they, they did, they were trying
to introduce the wine to America and Americans wouldn't understand this.
And so that's a conversation that goes on in every region of the world.
The French did it a long time ago. Instead of putting
(33:07):
bon the label, they put Chardonnay so that
Americans would understand it. Yeah. So the question is, does this lead
to, do we put otany because we're proud Armenians of
our culture, we put otany in Kangun and Volskahat and
Hagtaman and all that stuff on the label, or do we give
it some fanciful name so that people might see it on the
(33:29):
shelf and go, oh, there's a, you know, Chateau Armand. And,
and, but you. Sounds like to me. And the reason you said that you answered
the question already was, yeah, we're going to talk about irony and we're going to
expose the world to this grape. Yeah. So my brother in law
came home from Armenia way back when, probably 20 years ago or 15 years ago,
and he says, we got to bring Adeni to Army to America. The grape
(33:51):
itself, grow it here. Which as you know, you can't just transplant grapes and
expect them to flourish. But yeah, my first reaction was
then, having been in this business for so long, was no one's going to understand
what out any is. No one's going to buy out any. Why would you walk
into, no one walks into the store and says, do you have any Voska Hut?
Is this some sort of the challenge that you, that you've taken on yourself to
(34:12):
say, yeah, we, we have these things and they're really good. Well, you have
to, if, I mean, I don't want to sit back and say that we have
to do it and have, you know, rely on Paul to do it.
If I can do it, I'll do it myself. Yeah. And if I
have to be the first person, let it be the first person who's gonna do
this. I mean, the rewards or
(34:34):
failure. Try. I mean, you gotta
try. You gotta try. And again,
it's just, I mean, it's after, at the end of the day, it's
wine, it
doesn't sell. You just open it up and drink it. Yeah. Every time you do
these podcasts, I feel like I need a glass of wine. You know, like when
(34:55):
I go home, like I'm already anticipating going home. And I, I happen to be
a big fan of the Voskavas, Adeni and I Can't wait to open it. Yeah.
But here's. Here's the interesting thing and I get a lot of pushback on this.
I don't think personally, Adeni, the grape
likes oak. I think that the Armenian trade
had decided that the French do it and Americans do it and so we should
(35:16):
do it. And I think it throws out any out of balance. I think Sydney
likes oak. I think it does really well with oak, but I don't think oddity
does or I haven't tasted an oak age ottomy that was
balanced properly with the oak. Yes. You have an opinion on that?
I haven't tasted that many, to be honest with you. I'm not
a psalm. I'm not a.
(35:40):
To feel like oak where the oak. Yeah. I mean, for me,
when I did the tasting myself, when I tried it, I tried a few. With
few friends as well, that they had a little bit more expertise
and we just went with our gut feeling. I went with my God feeling. And
you know what? So far since I've been working, it's been working. Well,
then I want you to tuck that information under your hat that you're wearing. I
(36:02):
will. And. And when you go to army in X or you taste the wine
X, you just mark my words that I think
Adony in its organic and biodynamic form.
Yes. Is a pretty interesting grape in its oak form
is just red wine. Yeah. I mean I
have a couple of wines that are in oak.
(36:24):
Are any in oaks or there are some still
casks. Do you have Amphora? Do you have some
Amphora? Amphora? No, I don't have one Amphora yet.
So that's something to work on, expanding my portfolio.
So right now I'm a very small. Again, I'm a very small producer,
(36:44):
not producer, sorry, importer, compared to other importers, Armenian wine importers
in the industry. But you have a pretty big book. I mean you must have
20, 25 SKUs in there. I do have 20, yes. I have
20 SKUs. Correct.
And you know, as a first time importer, you bring
it in and. And there are some that
(37:07):
are expected or accepted in the
new world here and there are some that takes a little bit more work.
So I'm still in that process of learning. But again,
something that maybe was not palatable for some
folks. Some other restaurants, some loved it
(37:28):
and they ordered it for their restaurant. But
in up Fresno area. But then. But they
were not so much palatable here.
So that would be normal. It's normal, you know. So again,
no rush for me. Again this is. I'm doing it as
a. It's fun. It's serious, but it's fun. And
(37:52):
so I'm not worrying about those things. Something interesting about new
world, old world. You know, this. I love this part of the wine
trade for Armenia. And I. I go to a lot of
tastings. I still go to many. And the one I do like to go to
is called Raw R. A W is put on by a
master of wine out of the uk. She's a French woman, but she
(38:14):
has a group of wineries that follow certain. It's not a certification. It's
not a. It's not like biodynamic organic, but it's wines that are, you know, quote
unquote, natural. And you do have to have certain processes in
place in order to. Part of her group. And she'd put you on the road.
You go to all these different parts of the country. They do five in America
and. And usually it's downtown. It's every year. And
(38:36):
I went to the Georgian booth. Okay, okay. And they were.
Well, they were. There wasn't really a booth. There's like three or four Georgian whiners
in a row. And clearly this old world
man, you know, old tennis shoe type wines in one
table, and then you go to the next table. And there's a modern take on
the same grapes. And they have very specific grapes as well. They use M4. They
(38:58):
have all kinds of amazing techniques. And I thought,
well, Armenia is in this really weird definition of old world. If you
were to talk about the world old world, you would either talk about it as
a function of character, which is that old tennis shoe flavor,
or you would talk about it as ground like
Burgundy, which has been making wines since, you know, the 10th century.
(39:21):
So using both those definitions, army is sort of a tough spot
because it has to be old world that way. But it
was stalled in technology for 70 years. And
now we are really a new world in the way we make wine for the
most part, stainless steel fermentation. And, you know, we're working,
experimenting things. But what you. What we don't have, and this was
(39:42):
brought to me by Amy Kashkarian of Zulau, which
was. We don't have the 200 years experience. We
missed out on that experience. To learn about Adoni
Adeni and Adeni, to learn about Sileni in
Artsakh, to learn about what Voskahat does
near Yerevan when it's growing. We don't have all that experience yet.
(40:06):
What would you say if somebody says that? Well, are you Old world or new
world? Little bit of both. Little. Both.
Yeah. That's good. We can always say
historically, we go back to 6,100 years based on the
archaeologic find, archaeologist findings,
the Arini Cave and all the winemaking. Yes,
(40:28):
but to your point, it's not like we've been making wine
since then. I mean, again, us as the first
Christian nation in 300 BC, you know, and part
of being Christian, you know, wine comes with it, right? That's true. Part of
our tradition. So again, winemaking in our
nationality is. It's within our blood that it's part
(40:50):
of our culture, it's part of our religion. So
although all this technology is new, but maybe
it's been broken since Soviet Union.
We joined Soviet Union, all that. But again, it's been
in our culture, it's been in our
(41:11):
heritage. So it's easier for us to come back to
it and delve deep and
reignite the passion. And the rne grape, it's historically
one of the oldest grapes as well.
That's what I think. Kind of old and new. We just.
(41:31):
But to your point, yes, winemaking in Armenia,
it's picked up only the last 15 years and
grew very much. But
they've been there, they've been making wine. There are wineries that's
been around 20 years, 30 years,
(41:52):
but past five years we really grew. There's a
lot of Armenian winemakers, which. In itself is really impressive that
they've able to create quality like they have in such a
short amount of time. That's a interesting definition and I guess this
is generational, that every generation goes through their opinion of anything,
whether it's wine or food, it doesn't matter. You know,
(42:14):
now the fact that, for instance, with cuisine, we're into a mode of
healthy eating and, and non frozen and all the
things that go into making quality food, when only in the
60s and 70s was it more appropriate to
have fake stuff in your food and to have frozen steaks and all. I mean,
that was just the culture, you know, the packaged foods. And we were fed that
(42:36):
and we were, we ate that. And so I think wine goes through the same
thing. But for me, what's interesting about wine, it still is what
Noah made. Right. It's still fermented grape
juice. Yes. You know, all the cycles of
consumerism can change the profile of the wine. And now we're into
a cleaner, brighter wines than we used to be, even 10 years ago.
(42:57):
But still it's the same as it was. Yes. And
I think that's And I'm wondering too, do you come across
since. And I think this is important because it's
so new and because we don't have
fields contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and
insecticides. Yes. Do you think it's a natural
(43:20):
transition for Armenian wines to be at least organic, if not
biodynamic? And do you have a call for them? Do people ask about that?
No, but what I think is at least
those that I work with, I try to work
with the wineries that are least.
(43:40):
Intervention. Yes. So.
That'S where I like to work with because again,
we're not dealing with. I'm not dealing with quantities that they
make. The largest producer is that I
work with is Vosquevas. Yeah,
(44:01):
they make a lot of wines. But again I. My wine within
their company is smaller line.
They don't make that many. Yeah, but majority of my other,
the other five that I. Five other producers
I represent, they are small, they don't make that many
(44:21):
batches, that many bottles. So what I get is what
I get and that's it.
So that for me, that's very special. Again,
if I have my wine on your shelf, I don't try to make
it big and all across send, I don't
know, 500 cases to Total Wines and all
(44:45):
250 stores. No, that's not my intention.
You know, if I can have it in one location, that's fine, that's.
I'm content with that. And it doesn't also with my business model,
I can't because that requires capital
coming from finance. So that requires capital and that
requires extra work and
(45:07):
to have capital and investors.
I'm responsible for the investors and I don't want to be responsible for
that. This is all self funded, by the way. I didn't borrow any money
from anyone in my business because I wanted it to be
my way, my project. And I don't want to answer to
(45:29):
anyone. It's like it's. I answer to myself.
That's a very Armenian thing to do. I agree
with you. That's. I could never do it the other way as well. Yeah, you
want to carve your own path. At one point maybe you have
to because you scale. But at that point
I'll be confident enough to say, hey, these are what I've done in the past
(45:52):
four or five years on my own. Yeah, right. This is the past,
this is the present and this is what I envision for the next 10 years.
And that's where I can confidently say,
okay, now I'm accepting
Capital or investment. But again,
it's something that I'm not thinking about. I just like to take it day by
(46:14):
day, month by month in the. Cycle of what you're doing.
You've got your obviously organization established, you've got a
logistical thing. You're making sales calls, you're exposing the
brands that at different trade events so that people can
see what you're doing and have a chance to buy them.
Have you thought about the next step, what that's going to be? More brands,
(46:36):
more diverse type of brands. A salesperson.
I'm not there yet. I'm trying to do myself
a little bit of again from my past
experience where I've been doing, I've been knocking on doors,
boots on the ground, walk inside a business and say, hi,
(46:57):
I'm here. Would you like to buy this?
So I'm not shy in that. So
that's what I'm doing. That's what I've been doing. It's been successful
and I want to first experience it
myself before I hire a salesperson and try to coach
(47:17):
them in the industry. So. And I don't want
anyone to come in with their preconceived sales system
because, you know, salesperson is a
salesperson. My focus is not selling my focus right
now, it's educating. Well, I think it's interesting you said that.
(47:37):
The way I did it here for 35 years and how I got
100,000 wines under my belt I've tasted is because every
Tuesday for 35 years, ever since those days, in fact, in that picture, I'd
go upstairs, I set up my dad's Tuesday's tasting with his doctor friend.
I just went to the tasting room, stood there at 9 o' clock in the
morning and I left at 2 o' clock and I tasted whatever came in the
(47:58):
door. Yes. And the reason I brought that up was I would get all kinds
of stories of the previous call that that sales rep made or
the previous presentation or the jerk
restaurateur who made them wait two hours to taste one wine and then insult
them. You know, there, there is no formula. Right. I think education
is probably the only formula. And not, not wine. Geeky
(48:22):
information. But you know, the. Your job is to supplement and
help this retailer or this restaurant sell some stuff. Exactly. The first
job. It has to. It is about business. Right. We have to make a buck.
Yeah. Or a drum or two. Right. So you can't, you
can't just ignore that. Yeah. And. But the stories I
used to hear about some of these, the way People were treated was like
(48:43):
unbelievable. Well, one of the responsibilities I have as
well is to small. To help the small businesses here.
Yeah. So I'm not here to import my
products, just to import it, sell it to Paul
to put it on the shelf. Here I am. I make the money, I walk
away. Right. No, my focus is
(49:05):
to have it on your shelf, to make sure that it's a good enough
product, that I support you enough that you gonna
sell this product and educate your clients about why this wine
is a little bit special than the others or why
they should buy this wine compared these grapes compared to these
other grapes. So I think it's. My
(49:27):
focus is, my business model is to make it a win, win,
win situation. Win for my producer, win for my
store owner, and win for my, the their
vendors. And here I am the importer and
wholesaler. Naturally, I'm going to be the winner anyways. Yeah.
Right. Well, it's an important feature. That's an important comment, though.
(49:49):
I, I made this comment at the Armenian assembly event. The one, the one where
I had the. Yes.
And there was an interesting thing right there. I had the. They had two Volska
hearts that day. One was Voskavaz and the other one was
the Moran. And they were entirely different wines. Yes.
And so I thought that was really fascinating. I shouldn't be fascinated by that, but
(50:11):
it was just interesting because it's a young industry. But I did tell the crowd,
I said, the only way that this gets traction
in the community is to go into a restaurant
and just ask the Psalm, do you have any Armenian wines? Yes. Because
they're only gonna, they're only gonna put on the list what they think they can
sell. That's their job. Right. And this is sort of the irony of the
(50:33):
wine trade. It's so romantic and so expressive of regions in the world
and cultural. But you got to sell it and it's, you know, you got to
make a buck and the margins are bad. And you know, we do it
because we love it, we're passionate about it. I can see it in you. But
at the same time, the job is consumer based. Exactly.
So, so we go into the restaurant, we say, hey, can I see the wine
(50:53):
list? Oh, you don't have any Armenian wines. And the Psalm goes, hey, you know,
maybe I should look into some Armenian wines. Correct. For there's something important.
We're out. We're actually out of time already. But
one thing that happened in LA about 10 years ago, maybe a little less,
maybe 75 years ago, was that Armenian Wines became
part of the book of more
(51:16):
mainstream distributors. Now here you are, you only do Armenian wines. But
when Masano started carrying wine, when
Chambers and Chambers started carrying Armenian wine, that
changed a little bit. That means the salesperson
who's out selling Jack Daniels and Camus
(51:36):
also has Armenian wine in their book. Correct. And that's huge.
That's good for you. Yeah, because they, they're making
a lot of sales calls and they're educating a lot of buyers on the fact
that these exist. Maybe not yours, but when you get there,
it's not completely new. Have you seen any of that yet? No,
not yet. I mean, I have. That's a good speech for that. Yeah.
(51:59):
No, well, I mean, but. No,
what. I mean, I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, I agree with
what you said and. But it's a long way for me to get
there. Yes, of course, obviously. But. But it's
good. Definitely. It's a very good
that, that those folks, those wholesalers and those distributors
(52:21):
carry the army wines and it's part of their portfolio.
But again, what I noticed, some of the wholesalers, they're like,
hey, what is your. If you want us to carry your wine in
Colorado, if you want to carry your wine in another state,
it's like, do you have a clientele for us? Really? That's the
key. Because they're not going to build your clientele over there. They don't
(52:43):
have time for it. So I have to create my own clientele in those
states before I can approach them. So it's a long way
to go for me, it's too far ahead and
I like just to focus on what's current and what's coming
up and
grow my business locally through the communicating with
(53:06):
friends, coworkers, family,
those people who have been supporting me and events that
I'm going to and participating and trying to
promote our wines. So that's my focus
right now. And it's been very.
If you would have asked me, hey, Armen, back in the day, what do
(53:29):
you see yourself? Like 6 months ago when we met, how do
you envision yourself six months from now? I
would say
I wouldn't be. I would not have that idea that I have right now.
Yeah, that's great. I've been blessed with a great
opportunities that, you know, and I haven't dined alone. I
(53:52):
had a lot of, as I said, a lot of co workers, people.
Well, a lot of friends and
acquaintances, you know, help me in this process. That's great. Well,
we're out of time. Like I Said it's already been 15 minutes. Can you believe
it? But that's what happens when two friends get together. Talk about one. Yeah, right.
It goes back pretty quick. Seems like we can go on and on, you know,
(54:13):
pop one open. Well, I wish you all the luck in the world
and I hope we can do this again in maybe six months from now, a
year from now, where you've experienced more headwinds,
more of this industry. There's a lot of changes going on. There's a
unknown places to land. They don't know, you know, when no
one really knows where some of this is going to go. But you're in
(54:35):
a pretty unique position. You got a niche wine. It's.
It's not going to be market force driven as much as some of this other
stuff. And you're going to be able to, to walk in with a unique
product that no one's seen or heard of or if they have, they haven't tasted
a good one. And like I said, I was very impressed with the
whole lineup, the quality that you found. I appreciate you stopping by
(54:57):
the booth and trying the wines, you know. So, yeah, I mean, we do have
a website, we do have Instagram, we do have all the Facebooks. Well, there's
also some very good looking Armenian women hanging around your booth. So
that's why I went over there
because there's one, Ani dude,
the wine journalist, she was standing right by your booth and
(55:20):
she sees me, she goes, are you Paul? I'm like, wow, good looking Armenian,
tall Armenian girl, wants to know who I am. I'm gonna go talk to her.
Yeah, don't tell my wife. She doesn't
listen to the show. Anyway, thanks for coming
in and saying hi and have a chance to share your story. Paul, thank you
very much for this opportunity. Thank you very much and it was a
(55:41):
pleasure sitting through this conversation. See you next, the next Guinea Fest
or somewhere before. Yes. Yeah. So we're gonna be at the. I'm gonna
be at the Fairplex, Los Angeles Fairplex. Oh, so when is that tasting?
16Th and 17th. I'm doing two. Is it. Are
you displaying there? Yes. So it's. I'm gonna be
a new building. I. I know I saw a picture. They have a new place.
(56:04):
I haven't been there. I'm gonna be there for the first time this weekend to
see how it's set up and everything. But I'm. But
next Saturday, Next weekend, Friday and Saturday, I'm doing a
couple of tastings over there. Used to be September 1st to
September 21st. So they moved it in. There's a fair cycle.
You'll probably learn this now because Golden Orange county
(56:27):
has a tasting. Oh, okay. And that starts June
14, usually. So he didn't want to compete with that. Yeah. So they've moved them
around. Delmar. I don't. I don't think San Diego has a tasting.
But then the California State Fair has a huge tasting. Okay. Which is
just before old LA County. So the whole circuit that these guys follow
that you may become familiar with because of all this.
(56:49):
Slowly. Yeah, one. One opens up. One door
opens up. Many more doors here, you know, so. Cheers. Very exciting.
Cheers.
This is a hobby and this is where my
passion lies. And sometimes your passion, it just
ignites and it just. You get deeper and deeper. And as
you said, wine industry is something that the more
you learn, the more you realize that you don't know.
Sit back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks
(00:22):
with Paul K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with
Paul K. And we are in studio today about to have a conversation with Armin
Gazet Ganyan of Cork and Bottle. Introductions in
just a moment. Hey, have a listen to a show that I did recently with
Chad Luddington. This guy, I mean, he's got a
PhD, two masters, I don't know how many bas, but he's a
(00:43):
historian. But a wine historian. It's a
fascinating conversation. Have a listen to that. But not while we're here. We're here to
have a conversation with Armin at Cork and Bottle. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me. Good to see you After. How long has it been
that we saw each other? It's been about six months now. Right. Well,
we get around to the stuff once in a while. Yeah. It just seems like
(01:04):
yesterday. Well, we met at. At Guinea Fest, which, of
course, for the listeners. Guinea means wine in
Armenia. And then there's a local festival in Los Angeles that. That
highlights Armenian wine is turned into other products as well now. But
I have to tell you something. When I was there, I tasted every
wine that was there. It was about 75 total.
(01:27):
But that's work, work, work for me, you know? Yeah.
And I had not heard of Cork and Bottle at the time,
wasn't part of the regular mainstream distributors of.
Of wine. I was so impressed with the quality and
this and the curating. You know, it's kind of a
tough word to use in our business, but it's the curating of your
(01:50):
list. So. But that's not your day job.
No. Or it wasn't your day job. It seems like
it's about to be my day job. Yeah. Good. It's
growing on me now. Well, I could wish. I could wish you
nothing but good luck in getting into this industry. Good luck,
meaning I hope that it works out for you because it is a fabulous industry.
(02:13):
Yes. And it turns you on to so many different parts of culture in the
world. But. But what do you do then, normally?
Well, I've been in finance business for 20 years. Oh,
I see. Working fin. For, for and in financial
institution, corporation. So it's been a
great journey in that sense. And I'm still
(02:35):
in that industry currently self employed.
And but yeah, so I worked a lot with business
owners and helped them advise
them about business finance and access to
capital and loans
and all the types of everything that business owners
(02:58):
they may need depending on where they are
with J.P. morgan. And you know, that's. And I have
a similar background. I was with corporate America, my wife was with corporate America. We
both became wine in the wine trade. But
has that experience at JP Morgan set you up
(03:18):
for A, being in your own business, which is now
only a few months old and B starting something from
scratch? Well, yeah, I mean
that experience was hands on.
It's not something that you can learn at school, you can
go to the best schools, but read all these great books. But nothing
(03:41):
compares to being hands on, doing something that you really
enjoy and love. And that's what my passion was in
and is, is helping business owners helping people
grow and in what they do and what
they're passionate about. And my expertise was in business and working
with business owners. So some were
(04:03):
just launching their businesses, some were
semi few years in their
business and some were already matured in their business so
they were winding down. So I've seen business owners in all the
stages of their business and what the struggles are and also
the economy. I mean I was in finance when
(04:26):
2007, 2008, I saw what happened.
Right. And then 2013, 14. So I've seen all the
cycle, life cycle for business owners, what they do and successful business
owners, what they do, how they protect themselves and those people that
basically, unfortunately they can't
(04:46):
handle the economy or the flow of the business and
they fail, but they come back again. So it was a
great experience and I think that gave me a
great hands on experience of one day if I'm going to have
my own business, what to do and what not to do. But again, you never
know until you start your business and it's always a little bit different.
(05:09):
Well, nothing can be more true than that in the wine business.
Totally. So I'm going to sort of throw this at you because it is
a business that seems to be immune from what would be
traditionally business school tactics. What you
get out of the books like you talked about, I think
(05:29):
wine is very similar to that in that you can read all the books about
Bordeaux and Burgundy, but until you go there and smell the dirt and taste the
wines, you know, it doesn't really help you that much. But did you find that
so far? And we're going to talk about the cork and bottle right now, but
did you find that some of those lessons Maybe didn't
apply or pieces of them applied and some didn't.
(05:50):
In the wine business? Yeah. Coming from finance on the wine business.
Well, it was not a conscious effort, more or less.
It was more of a passion for me. It was more of a hobby for
me. That's all. It started as a hobby a couple of years ago. The wine
side. The wine side, Yeah. I mean I was, I'm an
Armenian heritage
(06:11):
ancestors and I'm originally from Iran.
There's a big Armenian community, diaspora.
I like my wife, yeah, we've been there for 500
years and I've been in the US for about a little bit over 40
years. And so for me
it was more of whenever I went to Armenia. Recently I
(06:34):
started going back to Armenia since 2011. That was my first time when
visited in Armenia and I just loved the
hospitality and the people and it was very welcoming
and the food is amazing and the people are great.
And for me it was like again coming home in a way,
feeling that everybody speaks Armenian in the streets and such.
(06:58):
And I tasted the authentic Armenian wine
for the first time. When was that?
2011, 2014 and
16. And I went back six, seven times since then. But
every time I went there, I tried this authentic Armenian wines
and I'm like, oh, I wish I could find these also
(07:21):
in the US and the US has great Armenian wines,
needless to say, but there are always this micro wineries,
mom and pop and family owned, but they don't get
exposure. And I'm like, okay, well
I'm going to take five bottles with me. That's the limit.
If any friends come over from our event, hey, can you get me a couple
(07:44):
of more bottles if not trouble. And
that's how I got those wines. And
slowly I was like, okay. Cork and bottle was a
passion that I started and out of, not so
much out of the business, but making money or anything like that behind
it because I was already fine in my industry.
(08:09):
It was more of I was trying to help a lot of business here. I've
been always helping a lot of business owners here, startups, and watch them
mature. And I want to take some of that passion and apply
it to those winemakers and
what product, what service that
can I help in Armenia that is
(08:31):
international, that brings joy to people,
brings people together and that's all about what I like to do.
I like to interact with people and have a seat and enjoy my time with
them, talk great talks. And so wine
goes back historically as a great product of
Armenia and we, we are proud of it. How original.
(08:54):
We are going back to 6,100 years. You know, let me stop it for a
second. That. Sure. You said something important. And I, and
I. That's the first time I've heard it said the way you said it, and
I used it. Recently, I, I was asked to write a quote about,
about food and wine. And I said, you know, historically,
wine is probably the most
(09:15):
historical reflection of culture there is.
Because if you were to pick, if you were to pick five things that a
culture might represent, you would say a language, which we have, you would say land,
which we currently have, but you would say food would be a
identifier of all cultures. And wine, if they have it,
those are the things that represent a culture. And that's kind of interesting because
(09:37):
you said it the same way. Yeah. And the wine is not
perishable like the food is. Right. Okay. You can go to any country, enjoy the
food and have an appetite, have that flavor of that
fruit, that vegetable from that country. But you cannot bring in
the US the same apple is not the same as apple here,
but the essence, the juice from grape,
(10:01):
what you get over here is transferable here. And it represents that
same culture. Yeah. And it represents, and the wine
has all the elements. It has the effect of the sun,
the heat, the air, the water, the minerals. You get everything from
that country, whether it's Armenia, Georgia,
Hungary, France, Italy. But I'm
(10:23):
proud to be, to be able to bring that flavors
here in the US through the Coke and bottle. I was there in 07,
and unless we just drank the wrong Armenian wines,
nothing was palatable. And it's already been, you know, 1990 was
freedom. Of course it takes, you know, wine is a very slow industry, so it
takes years for technology to catch up and bring it in and bring winemakers
(10:45):
that know what they're doing. Yes. And so if you're there 2011 or 14 and
you're starting to taste things that feel like win wine, because the stuff I tasted
didn't taste like wine. You know, that's a pretty amazing
advancement in, in culture. And
it goes back to the idea that really the Armenians
were stalled during the Soviet time and
(11:07):
so. And they got unleashed. Yes. And we've had this
conversation before with many winemakers, but that was a fast
release. I mean, they really ramped up. And I think some of the stuff I
tasted with you and other wines that come from there are, can be
or should be world class wines. So here you are
organically helping your friends possibly get a bottle
(11:30):
of Armenian wine because you Smuggled it in. So.
But, but that's a lot different than like, okay, I'm going
to start an LLC or subchapter s and I'm going to figure out how to
get the logistics going. And I'm going to go back to Armenia and find some
winemakers that want to be represented in the US and go through
TTB approval. All that stuff. Yes. Were there things that you,
(11:52):
that you didn't expect or there. All these things were just challenges
because you've been in an industry that's very challenging anyway and you just, it regulated.
Yes, it was just part of the game.
And that's another aspect of my profession, my day job profession
is being in this business of working with different industry
people. And the 20 years in the business with, in
(12:14):
finance and come across all these business owners with different lines of business.
I had a lot of connection,
people who knew people who are in industry.
And when I asked them, and this is what my passion is and
what I would love to do and
graciously they offered, hey, let me introduce you to this person
(12:37):
that imports wine from France. Let me introduce
you to this person that imports wine from,
that does logistics. Let me introduce you to this
person. So that connection right there, I would have not been able
to do as fast as what I did without that
connection. So again, it wasn't so much about reading,
(13:00):
going online and asked. It was more of
people talking to people that are actually doing it or getting
connected through people who are able to connect you with those people.
So that is key and that has been the key for my
success. I would love to say that to. This day, I
can't imagine starting from with the Internet
(13:24):
in Googling to figure out how to do this. Yeah, no, I mean almost
impossible. And I've used consultants all these years.
Everything I've had, you know, I've dabbled in all parts of the business and
man, what a, you know, the headwinds must have been. Were they daunting
where you're like, oh, I don't think I'm going to do this kind
(13:44):
of thing. I was like, no. It's just, you know, again,
it wasn't for me that, okay, I'm going to
do this. And. Here it is.
I'm dropping everything and I'm going to start the Coke and bottle
imports. It was a process. It was okay, take one step at
a time. I'm not going anywhere. I already have a
(14:07):
day job. It pays the bills, feeds the family. I'm
fine. This is a hobby and this is
where My passion lies. And sometimes your passion,
it just ignites and you get
deeper and deeper. And as you said, wine industry is something
that the more you learn, the more
(14:30):
you realize that you don't know. Yeah,
it keeps going and it's evolving, it's
changing. Winemaking is not the same as
even 2010
or 500 years ago. So flavors change, palace
change, people's priorities. Were you surprised when you got to
(14:52):
Armenia, what you found? The quality of the wines, the variety
of the wines, the philosophical approaches.
And I was surprised about the varieties of the wine
grapes that I never heard before. I mean, all
of them. Never heard before. All of them. I mean, indigenous grapes. And that was.
(15:13):
Even hybrids, which is really fascinating. Exactly. And for me,
that is. That was a discovery of.
It just opened me up to a whole new world. Because I love wine. I
drank wine. I socialized a lot with friends and
we drank wine. But, you know, I always like everyone else. You start with
Merlot, Cabernets, Pinots, California wine, and
(15:36):
evolving to other countries. But. And
I appreciate it. I appreciate all those. And I
thought, hey, why don't I appreciate the Armenian wines and see the
Armenian grapes, what the varieties are. So every time I went there, little by little,
I'm like, okay, what is this wine? And there are a lot of Armenian micro
winery stores that are. There are great
(15:59):
stores. And you sit down and you do wine tasting.
And I'm like, oh, I love this, but it's not available. I love this, but
it's not available, the brands. And
so I would come back and I'm like, okay, just
take it with you. Until. Another thing that
motivated me was a friend of mine that
(16:21):
he is opening up a store in Burbank,
a wine store. And as you know, the
US Wine import producing and import and
distribution and sales is a tiered based. Yes.
So when
he said he's going to open up a store and I thought about it, I'm
(16:43):
like, okay, so if you can open up the store, anything I bring,
can you carry it? He's like, sure.
Actually, let me stop there a second. Good friends,
relatives, a certain extent, the Kasabians. Diko
Kasabian has a little vineyard in his house in the Valley, and he
now buys grapes and makes wines under the brand. And
(17:07):
when his wife went out to go sell, she went into a
liquor store or wine shop in their part of town. And the guy said,
you're my friend. I'm going to put the floor. I'm going to put the wine
in. I give you a floor stack. Yeah, but it's not going to sell
because no one's ever heard of it. Nobody walks in here looking for
Kasabi and Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc. So it's your job.
(17:29):
Meaning you. Yes. To go out and tell people that this exists.
Yes. So that they come into my store or, you know, and
this is a huge shift in the industry in California, for sure, and I'm sure
the nation. But, you know, distributors,
they'll take on a brand as long as it's being
sold. They're not going to go build the brand for you anymore. So
(17:51):
you. You have to go build the brand. Now, you're on both sides of the
fence now because you are the distributor. Yeah. So you got to find somebody to
build the brand. But the wine shop guy, now maybe in your case, as a
friend, he'll hand sell the wine. Oh, by the way, come over to this section.
You know, come over to Armand's section. We'll sell you one of our men's wines.
But for the most part, it's kind of your job to tell people
that this exists. Yeah. And that's why
(18:15):
I'm not saying that. Okay. Just importing and put it in store, and that's
it. My commitment is, when I speak with my
producers is I'm putting. I'm going to put the effort into it.
And I have. Starting from Guinea Fest, we
had the sample tasting, and it was before even the product was landed
in us. So those samples that you tasted, all. Those wines I tasted. Yes.
(18:37):
They weren't here. They weren't here yet. They were the samples. Wow. I didn't. I
didn't. I didn't know that. I didn't get the. I didn't get the actual product
because. Because the shipment from Armenia takes about. It took me
two and a half to three months to arrive in
US from the port. This is an interesting problem. Let me stop you again. I'm
sorry to interrupt. Yeah, sure. You're, You're, you're, you're touching on
(18:58):
things that I had forgotten about or that I hadn't had to deal with for
a long time. And one of those was I had an imports license.
I have seven licenses still. Yeah, alcohol licenses. And I got them
for all various reasons. My import license wasn't to bring. Bring wines in.
It was to bring in other stuff, but I would never use it
to import wine. Why? Because I wanted the importer
(19:21):
to take the risk. Because there was. There was a risk, and there has
been, even from Europe, that what you ordered wasn't what you get
for the listeners. This was not an uncommon. There was a whole
issue years ago with the Italian wines that were filled with antifreeze kind of thing
that they've been cut with antifreeze. But so I always relied on
the importer. I love to pay them their cost per case
(19:43):
or their clearing costs, knowing that when it landed in my
warehouse, if it wasn't what I ordered, if what was in the bottle was not
what I tasted. Yes. That I say, I'm not paying
you. Take it back. And that happened four times in my career. So it's not
a lot after 35 years. But were they what you
ordered? Yes. All of them? Yes.
(20:04):
Wow. They were. Because I did do
diligence. Again, the idea was there, the
passion is there, but again, you have to do what you have to do.
So I went to Armenia myself when
things got serious, where I had to choose the wines that I wanted
to import. I interviewed, went to the
(20:26):
wineries, met all the family members, met the
people behind the wine. Some of
them are four hours away, some of them are two hours away, some of them
are one hour away. I sat in a taxi, they took me over there and
I went, met, shook hands, looked the folks in their eyes
and looked at the fields, and I said, okay, this is authentic. This
(20:48):
is what it is. And they're serious. It's not like some. Some
person putting wine together in the
attic or. Or a room next door.
So, no, I mean, I did do those diligence, due
diligence. And. And they do. And these folks,
these producers, they do want to get their wines out there.
(21:11):
They're passionate about that wine. They're. They put their. I
mean, I'm working with a family, Maran family winery.
They've been. That's been in their blood since
1800. Pretty much the end of water wine. Right. What's that? They had
the wine that they age underwater. I'm
not sure. Modern, right?
(21:34):
Modern winery? Yeah. Oh, yes, yes. They have the underwater one. Yeah.
Right. Yes. He came to my.
We did a dinner together or something for them in assembly. Yeah, they
do. They store the bottles under the water? Yeah,
certain time. Because I don't know much about that process,
but apparently the water is around the
(21:58):
wine, the temperature and everything it gives. I have a
bottle at the house. I haven't opened it yet. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's very
delicate. It's very interesting process, but really I.
Since I could not import it because of the guidelines
and requirement and compliance, because there are some standards for those
type of wines. We could not. So.
(22:20):
But, but yes, that's the family. But that's. I mean, that's a
well known brand from this. So that was. For you to land that brand as
a distributor is pretty. Yeah. And. And serious. Yes.
They had a couple of lines here already for another importer, but
I pretty much brought in the wider portfolio and. Which I'm bringing
in as well. And it's been accepted very well. As a matter of fact,
(22:43):
few of my wines. And you mentioned how do I promote
it. And my commitment to my producer is like, listen, I take on
promoting your products, putting the word out there about Armenian wines,
Armenian grapes, and educate our folks,
whether here in town or doing events or such.
So in February, I attended
(23:06):
Wine and Spirit Wholesalers America. Oh,
wswa. Wswa, yes. They hate me. Back in
the old days. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because direct to consumer stuff was like circumventing the
wholesalers of the world. So I attended that trade show in
Colorado. So I went there, I
promoted the wine
(23:28):
and it was just a weekend or a
weekend process. So it wasn't a big deal. It's just a very powerful
organization. Yes. Just took a couple of days off, attended
and came back next day, get back to work, day
job. But that's what it was, you know.
And my wines
(23:51):
won awards. Our producers won award gold and silver awards
at the competition. I don't remember that. They had some kind of
tasting. They did. They had a panel. They did the tasting.
And three of my wines won awards gold. And
that feels pretty good, huh? If it made me a lot. It gave me a
lot of confidence about our product, about our producers and the
(24:14):
quality of wine you were talking about. Right. As a matter of
fact, my wine is also one or my producer's wine
via my importance cork and bottle import. They won also
awards at the Los Angeles International Wine Company.
The fair. The fair. Wow. That is. That is. Like I said, it's the
(24:34):
largest. It was the largest independent tasting in the country. I don't know.
So like 2500, 3000 wines. Yeah. So do you. We won
awards as well. Congrats. That's really good. I'm gonna be
there next week for some wine tasting
at the fair. You know, in the old days, we used to set up
this business. Really got started in
(24:56):
1984. Yeah. Even though my dad was doing the 70s,
it jumped in 1984. And I told you that it's because the LA.
The LA County Fair called him. And they used to have a bill. It was
Building four, which was the only Air conditioned building in the whole place back in
the day. Yes. And it was all wine and county stuff,
right? And they said, we, you know, my
(25:18):
dad inquired maybe a month before the fair and they sell out the booths,
you know, a year ahead. Anyway, he says they call him, if you can
stock a 24, a 20 foot by 20 foot booth, like
decorate it, you can have it for free.
So he shows up with my mom, you know, they're 12 hour days to work
those booths at the LA County Fair. He's right across from the tasting,
(25:40):
the Gold Medal tasting bar. Oh, wow. Where you go and pay to
what you're going to do when you go. And people saw the sign, Wine
of the Month club. They signed up and he doubled his membership in 20 days.
And he goes, wow, this is going to work. And here's. Here you are, show
up at wwa, you win some awards, you go, hey, this might work. Yes. It's
kind of like the way this industry is, because you don't know. How are you
(26:01):
supposed to know? Exactly. So what's going on? I was at
momad, I don't know if you know, moment. The restaurant. Oh, yeah, okay.
And he and I was just there the other day and we were talking and
he was, he was saying that his bottle sales
of wine have gone down considerably, which is not unusual
in the trade. Wine sales are down in general and here at the
(26:24):
restaurant. And so he decided, and that's why I brought up partially as
something for you to go pursue as well as just the idea, the concept of
what he's doing. He's, he's Mediterranean food, but kind of
not sort of. He's just a nice fusion of Mediterranean flavors
in his food. And he's redoing his whole wine list and he's
going to go all Mediterranean. He's getting rid of all the standards. He's getting
(26:46):
rid of the Austin Hopes and the Silver Oaks and the Cuses, all that stuff
going. And his whole list is going to be strictly
probably some of your wines, hopefully of wines from, from
Armenia, maybe some from Lebanon, who knows? Yes. And I thought. Have you
seen the questions? Have you seen this kind of
sweeping move for wines of unusual
(27:08):
places? I mean, here you are, you're on the streets now trying to sell some
stuff. And what's the, let's go back a little bit. What's the general
comment you get if you walk into Total Wine?
Are you crazy or are you.
No, I mean, I've been interesting. I mean, I've been very fortunate
to come across very Positive feedback
(27:32):
from wine tasters or those in the
industry or those folks that are decision makers for
the stores that they carry my wine or they will carry my wine.
The most positive feedback is an order. Yes. Right. Yes. And
also it's an order. But again, they do the tasting. They're
(27:52):
like, hey, this is unique. This is different. What is
this kind of grape? Is this. Just educate them a little bit about
that, and they decide to carry
it and put it in part of their international wine
shelves. And again, that gives me
very good feeling to know that I'm the
(28:15):
first one having an Armenian wine in that store. Yeah, that's
huge. I mean, I'm really impressed with that, being able to do. How about
getting those appointments in the first place? Word of mouth,
doing events like what I did events like that
yesterday. Last Thursday, I was at
Glendale Business Summit.
(28:37):
There was a great turnout of business owners in Glendale and
at a table giving out samples. And
it was amazing event. Very good event and very good
turnout and people. My table was the
busiest table. Obviously, bring. Yeah.
Wine brings people together. I think you've learned that part about the wine business.
(29:00):
Right, Right. And that was. That was great to see that.
And again, very good feedback. Very interested
people. And a lot of people were like, wow, what is this? What is this
different grape? And because those. It's not your. With all the
respect. It's not your Cabernets. It's not your Chardonnays. It's just
different grape. And it's just like you're trying the first time, I don't know,
(29:22):
Sushi, your first time, you're trying Thai food or. Yeah. So it's just a
different palette, and that's what I compare it to. That's interesting.
What. I had this question the other day, and it's. It's not. It's not an
easy question, because describing wines,
you know, it's very subjective to the set of, you may sense,
you know, fennel and I may not, or you may sense raspberries, and I may
(29:45):
not. So that's that part. When people say wine's subjective. I don't think
the evaluation of good wine is subjective, because good wine is good wine. And I
think everybody recognizes it. It's the character, you know, it's like
trying to describe it. And so somebody always asks, well, what is Ottomany like?
Is it like Pinot Noir? Is it like Syrah? What's it like? And that's a
tough question. And I always say it is actually light in structure,
(30:07):
like Pinot Noir, but it's big in flavor, like a Zin or
Syrah word. There's, you know, even though it looks light in the glass,
it's got some backbone to it. Yeah. And so do you. Do you.
Do people respect that when you. When you first taste them, they've never
tasted this variety before. Yeah. And they kind of go,
whoa. I've never had this. Like, last night, I opened a tannat from my
(30:30):
wife, and she. She's a Bordeaux person. Open a tannat, she goes, this is different.
Yes. I mean, people like to say different. It's
different now. Different. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting
good or interesting bad? I hope Interesting good. But when they say, can I
have the second sip? I'm like, I think it's an interesting good. Can I. Can
they come back for the third sip? Yeah, that makes sense. I'm like, I think
(30:51):
this is really good. I'll buy that. So
I just go based on that, you know? And there's so much you can explain
about the wine and the flavors and the background of
the grapes and the historic significance of it and where the
RNA comes from and what is compared to.
Comparison to, as you mentioned, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel, and.
(31:14):
But again, at the end of the day is like, you have to try it.
You have to experience it, because
you. You don't know until you don't know what. You don't know
until you try it, and then you realize, oh, this is a whole new
world that you just opened up for me. Now, today could be
RNA made by,
(31:37):
let's say, Crows Rock or Maran or Gerani
or such. Tomorrow could be, let me try
Voskevas grape. You know, let me try
Garas. So
it's the same grape, different producers, and each one has its
own expertise. And for me,
(32:00):
just. For me to be able to introduce R and E grape or
Kangun grape or a Hafta nut grape for the first time to
Paul, and then Paul's gonna try something else with the same
grape but somebody else's brand. For me, that's still a very
good feeling because, again, it opens up a different
area of
(32:23):
exposing and introducing indigenous Armenian grapes.
You kind of. You answered a question I didn't even ask. You're pretty good at
this, huh? It's just the flow, I
guess. Sorry. No, it's not. It's very funny, because
just look at that picture right there. There was probably a bottle on the wall
back then. It was called Hickory Ridge. And that would
(32:44):
certainly lend you to believe that it's a wine from America, and it was
moldavian and so what they were trying. And they didn't put the name of the
grape on it, it was a Moldavian grape. Because they, they did, they were trying
to introduce the wine to America and Americans wouldn't understand this.
And so that's a conversation that goes on in every region of the world.
The French did it a long time ago. Instead of putting
(33:07):
bon the label, they put Chardonnay so that
Americans would understand it. Yeah. So the question is, does this lead
to, do we put otany because we're proud Armenians of
our culture, we put otany in Kangun and Volskahat and
Hagtaman and all that stuff on the label, or do we give
it some fanciful name so that people might see it on the
(33:29):
shelf and go, oh, there's a, you know, Chateau Armand. And,
and, but you. Sounds like to me. And the reason you said that you answered
the question already was, yeah, we're going to talk about irony and we're going to
expose the world to this grape. Yeah. So my brother in law
came home from Armenia way back when, probably 20 years ago or 15 years ago,
and he says, we got to bring Adeni to Army to America. The grape
(33:51):
itself, grow it here. Which as you know, you can't just transplant grapes and
expect them to flourish. But yeah, my first reaction was
then, having been in this business for so long, was no one's going to understand
what out any is. No one's going to buy out any. Why would you walk
into, no one walks into the store and says, do you have any Voska Hut?
Is this some sort of the challenge that you, that you've taken on yourself to
(34:12):
say, yeah, we, we have these things and they're really good. Well, you have
to, if, I mean, I don't want to sit back and say that we have
to do it and have, you know, rely on Paul to do it.
If I can do it, I'll do it myself. Yeah. And if I
have to be the first person, let it be the first person who's gonna do
this. I mean, the rewards or
(34:34):
failure. Try. I mean, you gotta
try. You gotta try. And again,
it's just, I mean, it's after, at the end of the day, it's
wine, it
doesn't sell. You just open it up and drink it. Yeah. Every time you do
these podcasts, I feel like I need a glass of wine. You know, like when
(34:55):
I go home, like I'm already anticipating going home. And I, I happen to be
a big fan of the Voskavas, Adeni and I Can't wait to open it. Yeah.
But here's. Here's the interesting thing and I get a lot of pushback on this.
I don't think personally, Adeni, the grape
likes oak. I think that the Armenian trade
had decided that the French do it and Americans do it and so we should
(35:16):
do it. And I think it throws out any out of balance. I think Sydney
likes oak. I think it does really well with oak, but I don't think oddity
does or I haven't tasted an oak age ottomy that was
balanced properly with the oak. Yes. You have an opinion on that?
I haven't tasted that many, to be honest with you. I'm not
a psalm. I'm not a.
(35:40):
To feel like oak where the oak. Yeah. I mean, for me,
when I did the tasting myself, when I tried it, I tried a few. With
few friends as well, that they had a little bit more expertise
and we just went with our gut feeling. I went with my God feeling. And
you know what? So far since I've been working, it's been working. Well,
then I want you to tuck that information under your hat that you're wearing. I
(36:02):
will. And. And when you go to army in X or you taste the wine
X, you just mark my words that I think
Adony in its organic and biodynamic form.
Yes. Is a pretty interesting grape in its oak form
is just red wine. Yeah. I mean I
have a couple of wines that are in oak.
(36:24):
Are any in oaks or there are some still
casks. Do you have Amphora? Do you have some
Amphora? Amphora? No, I don't have one Amphora yet.
So that's something to work on, expanding my portfolio.
So right now I'm a very small. Again, I'm a very small producer,
(36:44):
not producer, sorry, importer, compared to other importers, Armenian wine importers
in the industry. But you have a pretty big book. I mean you must have
20, 25 SKUs in there. I do have 20, yes. I have
20 SKUs. Correct.
And you know, as a first time importer, you bring
it in and. And there are some that
(37:07):
are expected or accepted in the
new world here and there are some that takes a little bit more work.
So I'm still in that process of learning. But again,
something that maybe was not palatable for some
folks. Some other restaurants, some loved it
(37:28):
and they ordered it for their restaurant. But
in up Fresno area. But then. But they
were not so much palatable here.
So that would be normal. It's normal, you know. So again,
no rush for me. Again this is. I'm doing it as
a. It's fun. It's serious, but it's fun. And
(37:52):
so I'm not worrying about those things. Something interesting about new
world, old world. You know, this. I love this part of the wine
trade for Armenia. And I. I go to a lot of
tastings. I still go to many. And the one I do like to go to
is called Raw R. A W is put on by a
master of wine out of the uk. She's a French woman, but she
(38:14):
has a group of wineries that follow certain. It's not a certification. It's
not a. It's not like biodynamic organic, but it's wines that are, you know, quote
unquote, natural. And you do have to have certain processes in
place in order to. Part of her group. And she'd put you on the road.
You go to all these different parts of the country. They do five in America
and. And usually it's downtown. It's every year. And
(38:36):
I went to the Georgian booth. Okay, okay. And they were.
Well, they were. There wasn't really a booth. There's like three or four Georgian whiners
in a row. And clearly this old world
man, you know, old tennis shoe type wines in one
table, and then you go to the next table. And there's a modern take on
the same grapes. And they have very specific grapes as well. They use M4. They
(38:58):
have all kinds of amazing techniques. And I thought,
well, Armenia is in this really weird definition of old world. If you
were to talk about the world old world, you would either talk about it as
a function of character, which is that old tennis shoe flavor,
or you would talk about it as ground like
Burgundy, which has been making wines since, you know, the 10th century.
(39:21):
So using both those definitions, army is sort of a tough spot
because it has to be old world that way. But it
was stalled in technology for 70 years. And
now we are really a new world in the way we make wine for the
most part, stainless steel fermentation. And, you know, we're working,
experimenting things. But what you. What we don't have, and this was
(39:42):
brought to me by Amy Kashkarian of Zulau, which
was. We don't have the 200 years experience. We
missed out on that experience. To learn about Adoni
Adeni and Adeni, to learn about Sileni in
Artsakh, to learn about what Voskahat does
near Yerevan when it's growing. We don't have all that experience yet.
(40:06):
What would you say if somebody says that? Well, are you Old world or new
world? Little bit of both. Little. Both.
Yeah. That's good. We can always say
historically, we go back to 6,100 years based on the
archaeologic find, archaeologist findings,
the Arini Cave and all the winemaking. Yes,
(40:28):
but to your point, it's not like we've been making wine
since then. I mean, again, us as the first
Christian nation in 300 BC, you know, and part
of being Christian, you know, wine comes with it, right? That's true. Part of
our tradition. So again, winemaking in our
nationality is. It's within our blood that it's part
(40:50):
of our culture, it's part of our religion. So
although all this technology is new, but maybe
it's been broken since Soviet Union.
We joined Soviet Union, all that. But again, it's been
in our culture, it's been in our
(41:11):
heritage. So it's easier for us to come back to
it and delve deep and
reignite the passion. And the rne grape, it's historically
one of the oldest grapes as well.
That's what I think. Kind of old and new. We just.
(41:31):
But to your point, yes, winemaking in Armenia,
it's picked up only the last 15 years and
grew very much. But
they've been there, they've been making wine. There are wineries that's
been around 20 years, 30 years,
(41:52):
but past five years we really grew. There's a
lot of Armenian winemakers, which. In itself is really impressive that
they've able to create quality like they have in such a
short amount of time. That's a interesting definition and I guess this
is generational, that every generation goes through their opinion of anything,
whether it's wine or food, it doesn't matter. You know,
(42:14):
now the fact that, for instance, with cuisine, we're into a mode of
healthy eating and, and non frozen and all the
things that go into making quality food, when only in the
60s and 70s was it more appropriate to
have fake stuff in your food and to have frozen steaks and all. I mean,
that was just the culture, you know, the packaged foods. And we were fed that
(42:36):
and we were, we ate that. And so I think wine goes through the same
thing. But for me, what's interesting about wine, it still is what
Noah made. Right. It's still fermented grape
juice. Yes. You know, all the cycles of
consumerism can change the profile of the wine. And now we're into
a cleaner, brighter wines than we used to be, even 10 years ago.
(42:57):
But still it's the same as it was. Yes. And
I think that's And I'm wondering too, do you come across
since. And I think this is important because it's
so new and because we don't have
fields contaminated with pesticides and herbicides and
insecticides. Yes. Do you think it's a natural
(43:20):
transition for Armenian wines to be at least organic, if not
biodynamic? And do you have a call for them? Do people ask about that?
No, but what I think is at least
those that I work with, I try to work
with the wineries that are least.
(43:40):
Intervention. Yes. So.
That'S where I like to work with because again,
we're not dealing with. I'm not dealing with quantities that they
make. The largest producer is that I
work with is Vosquevas. Yeah,
(44:01):
they make a lot of wines. But again I. My wine within
their company is smaller line.
They don't make that many. Yeah, but majority of my other,
the other five that I. Five other producers
I represent, they are small, they don't make that many
(44:21):
batches, that many bottles. So what I get is what
I get and that's it.
So that for me, that's very special. Again,
if I have my wine on your shelf, I don't try to make
it big and all across send, I don't
know, 500 cases to Total Wines and all
(44:45):
250 stores. No, that's not my intention.
You know, if I can have it in one location, that's fine, that's.
I'm content with that. And it doesn't also with my business model,
I can't because that requires capital
coming from finance. So that requires capital and that
requires extra work and
(45:07):
to have capital and investors.
I'm responsible for the investors and I don't want to be responsible for
that. This is all self funded, by the way. I didn't borrow any money
from anyone in my business because I wanted it to be
my way, my project. And I don't want to answer to
(45:29):
anyone. It's like it's. I answer to myself.
That's a very Armenian thing to do. I agree
with you. That's. I could never do it the other way as well. Yeah, you
want to carve your own path. At one point maybe you have
to because you scale. But at that point
I'll be confident enough to say, hey, these are what I've done in the past
(45:52):
four or five years on my own. Yeah, right. This is the past,
this is the present and this is what I envision for the next 10 years.
And that's where I can confidently say,
okay, now I'm accepting
Capital or investment. But again,
it's something that I'm not thinking about. I just like to take it day by
(46:14):
day, month by month in the. Cycle of what you're doing.
You've got your obviously organization established, you've got a
logistical thing. You're making sales calls, you're exposing the
brands that at different trade events so that people can
see what you're doing and have a chance to buy them.
Have you thought about the next step, what that's going to be? More brands,
(46:36):
more diverse type of brands. A salesperson.
I'm not there yet. I'm trying to do myself
a little bit of again from my past
experience where I've been doing, I've been knocking on doors,
boots on the ground, walk inside a business and say, hi,
(46:57):
I'm here. Would you like to buy this?
So I'm not shy in that. So
that's what I'm doing. That's what I've been doing. It's been successful
and I want to first experience it
myself before I hire a salesperson and try to coach
(47:17):
them in the industry. So. And I don't want
anyone to come in with their preconceived sales system
because, you know, salesperson is a
salesperson. My focus is not selling my focus right
now, it's educating. Well, I think it's interesting you said that.
(47:37):
The way I did it here for 35 years and how I got
100,000 wines under my belt I've tasted is because every
Tuesday for 35 years, ever since those days, in fact, in that picture, I'd
go upstairs, I set up my dad's Tuesday's tasting with his doctor friend.
I just went to the tasting room, stood there at 9 o' clock in the
morning and I left at 2 o' clock and I tasted whatever came in the
(47:58):
door. Yes. And the reason I brought that up was I would get all kinds
of stories of the previous call that that sales rep made or
the previous presentation or the jerk
restaurateur who made them wait two hours to taste one wine and then insult
them. You know, there, there is no formula. Right. I think education
is probably the only formula. And not, not wine. Geeky
(48:22):
information. But you know, the. Your job is to supplement and
help this retailer or this restaurant sell some stuff. Exactly. The first
job. It has to. It is about business. Right. We have to make a buck.
Yeah. Or a drum or two. Right. So you can't, you
can't just ignore that. Yeah. And. But the stories I
used to hear about some of these, the way People were treated was like
(48:43):
unbelievable. Well, one of the responsibilities I have as
well is to small. To help the small businesses here.
Yeah. So I'm not here to import my
products, just to import it, sell it to Paul
to put it on the shelf. Here I am. I make the money, I walk
away. Right. No, my focus is
(49:05):
to have it on your shelf, to make sure that it's a good enough
product, that I support you enough that you gonna
sell this product and educate your clients about why this wine
is a little bit special than the others or why
they should buy this wine compared these grapes compared to these
other grapes. So I think it's. My
(49:27):
focus is, my business model is to make it a win, win,
win situation. Win for my producer, win for my
store owner, and win for my, the their
vendors. And here I am the importer and
wholesaler. Naturally, I'm going to be the winner anyways. Yeah.
Right. Well, it's an important feature. That's an important comment, though.
(49:49):
I, I made this comment at the Armenian assembly event. The one, the one where
I had the. Yes.
And there was an interesting thing right there. I had the. They had two Volska
hearts that day. One was Voskavaz and the other one was
the Moran. And they were entirely different wines. Yes.
And so I thought that was really fascinating. I shouldn't be fascinated by that, but
(50:11):
it was just interesting because it's a young industry. But I did tell the crowd,
I said, the only way that this gets traction
in the community is to go into a restaurant
and just ask the Psalm, do you have any Armenian wines? Yes. Because
they're only gonna, they're only gonna put on the list what they think they can
sell. That's their job. Right. And this is sort of the irony of the
(50:33):
wine trade. It's so romantic and so expressive of regions in the world
and cultural. But you got to sell it and it's, you know, you got to
make a buck and the margins are bad. And you know, we do it
because we love it, we're passionate about it. I can see it in you. But
at the same time, the job is consumer based. Exactly.
So, so we go into the restaurant, we say, hey, can I see the wine
(50:53):
list? Oh, you don't have any Armenian wines. And the Psalm goes, hey, you know,
maybe I should look into some Armenian wines. Correct. For there's something important.
We're out. We're actually out of time already. But
one thing that happened in LA about 10 years ago, maybe a little less,
maybe 75 years ago, was that Armenian Wines became
part of the book of more
(51:16):
mainstream distributors. Now here you are, you only do Armenian wines. But
when Masano started carrying wine, when
Chambers and Chambers started carrying Armenian wine, that
changed a little bit. That means the salesperson
who's out selling Jack Daniels and Camus
(51:36):
also has Armenian wine in their book. Correct. And that's huge.
That's good for you. Yeah, because they, they're making
a lot of sales calls and they're educating a lot of buyers on the fact
that these exist. Maybe not yours, but when you get there,
it's not completely new. Have you seen any of that yet? No,
not yet. I mean, I have. That's a good speech for that. Yeah.
(51:59):
No, well, I mean, but. No,
what. I mean, I agree with you. Yeah, I mean, I agree with
what you said and. But it's a long way for me to get
there. Yes, of course, obviously. But. But it's
good. Definitely. It's a very good
that, that those folks, those wholesalers and those distributors
(52:21):
carry the army wines and it's part of their portfolio.
But again, what I noticed, some of the wholesalers, they're like,
hey, what is your. If you want us to carry your wine in
Colorado, if you want to carry your wine in another state,
it's like, do you have a clientele for us? Really? That's the
key. Because they're not going to build your clientele over there. They don't
(52:43):
have time for it. So I have to create my own clientele in those
states before I can approach them. So it's a long way
to go for me, it's too far ahead and
I like just to focus on what's current and what's coming
up and
grow my business locally through the communicating with
(53:06):
friends, coworkers, family,
those people who have been supporting me and events that
I'm going to and participating and trying to
promote our wines. So that's my focus
right now. And it's been very.
If you would have asked me, hey, Armen, back in the day, what do
(53:29):
you see yourself? Like 6 months ago when we met, how do
you envision yourself six months from now? I
would say
I wouldn't be. I would not have that idea that I have right now.
Yeah, that's great. I've been blessed with a great
opportunities that, you know, and I haven't dined alone. I
(53:52):
had a lot of, as I said, a lot of co workers, people.
Well, a lot of friends and
acquaintances, you know, help me in this process. That's great. Well,
we're out of time. Like I Said it's already been 15 minutes. Can you believe
it? But that's what happens when two friends get together. Talk about one. Yeah, right.
It goes back pretty quick. Seems like we can go on and on, you know,
(54:13):
pop one open. Well, I wish you all the luck in the world
and I hope we can do this again in maybe six months from now, a
year from now, where you've experienced more headwinds,
more of this industry. There's a lot of changes going on. There's a
unknown places to land. They don't know, you know, when no
one really knows where some of this is going to go. But you're in
(54:35):
a pretty unique position. You got a niche wine. It's.
It's not going to be market force driven as much as some of this other
stuff. And you're going to be able to, to walk in with a unique
product that no one's seen or heard of or if they have, they haven't tasted
a good one. And like I said, I was very impressed with the
whole lineup, the quality that you found. I appreciate you stopping by
(54:57):
the booth and trying the wines, you know. So, yeah, I mean, we do have
a website, we do have Instagram, we do have all the Facebooks. Well, there's
also some very good looking Armenian women hanging around your booth. So
that's why I went over there
because there's one, Ani dude,
the wine journalist, she was standing right by your booth and
(55:20):
she sees me, she goes, are you Paul? I'm like, wow, good looking Armenian,
tall Armenian girl, wants to know who I am. I'm gonna go talk to her.
Yeah, don't tell my wife. She doesn't
listen to the show. Anyway, thanks for coming
in and saying hi and have a chance to share your story. Paul, thank you
very much for this opportunity. Thank you very much and it was a
(55:41):
pleasure sitting through this conversation. See you next, the next Guinea Fest
or somewhere before. Yes. Yeah. So we're gonna be at the. I'm gonna
be at the Fairplex, Los Angeles Fairplex. Oh, so when is that tasting?
16Th and 17th. I'm doing two. Is it. Are
you displaying there? Yes. So it's. I'm gonna be
a new building. I. I know I saw a picture. They have a new place.
(56:04):
I haven't been there. I'm gonna be there for the first time this weekend to
see how it's set up and everything. But I'm. But
next Saturday, Next weekend, Friday and Saturday, I'm doing a
couple of tastings over there. Used to be September 1st to
September 21st. So they moved it in. There's a fair cycle.
You'll probably learn this now because Golden Orange county
(56:27):
has a tasting. Oh, okay. And that starts June
14, usually. So he didn't want to compete with that. Yeah. So they've moved them
around. Delmar. I don't. I don't think San Diego has a tasting.
But then the California State Fair has a huge tasting. Okay. Which is
just before old LA County. So the whole circuit that these guys follow
that you may become familiar with because of all this.
(56:49):
Slowly. Yeah, one. One opens up. One door
opens up. Many more doors here, you know, so. Cheers. Very exciting.
Cheers.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com