Bad News Through the Grapevine: Spirit sales down, bugs causing problems

The Ararat Valley could be deprived of grapes during the upcoming ten years, if fears are realized by some farmers over the spread of a deadly infection.

Phylloxera is caused by an insect that feeds on grape roots, and it spoils the vine within two years. The disease is mainly spread by wind and has been detected in Turkey and in Echmiadzin.

The Ararat Valley could be deprived of grapes during the upcoming ten years, if fears are realized by some farmers over the spread of a deadly infection.

Phylloxera is caused by an insect that feeds on grape roots, and it spoils the vine within two years. The disease is mainly spread by wind and has been detected in Turkey and in Echmiadzin.

“If there is an infection in Ararat Plain, it is not excluded that it exists in other territories, too, because phylloxera spreads at a rate of 50 kilometers per year,” explains Avag Harutyunyan, Head of Armenian Wine Makers Union.

In Greece, when one of the islands was infected, the Greek Government deliberately infected other islands too, because they would be infected eventually. Later Greece got subsidies from the European Union, and Greek villagers started changing the infected vineyards with new ones.

So far the Armenian Government has taken no measures against the vineyard danger, which, so far, has affected half of the hectare of crops.

“Armenia does not have such abilities, besides, 99 percent of the vineyards are at the disposal of our villagers, and minimally $10,000 (3,800,000 drams) will be needed to replace 1 hectare of a vineyard,” Harutyunyan says.

Concerns over Mother Nature’s impact comes as the man-made economic crisis has already infected the grape-based products. So far this year, export of wine is down 48 percent; cognac, 51 percent; brandy 55 percent and other grape-based spirits by 13 percent (compared to January-August 2008 sales).

However, Harutyunyan states positive data here, reporting that while cognac exports were down 70 percent in the first quarter of this year, they were down by only 50 percent over the first seven months. He expects to end the year with about a 25 percent loss over 2008.

“We have many orders, and it is most probable that we will manage to return to our previous index, and even to have a 5 percent growth by May 2010,” Harutyunyan says.

The head of the union believes that these foresights may be realistic if the main consumption market for Armenia – Russia – overcomes the crisis. “Besides, our businessmen managed to orientate correctly during the crisis; and the raw materials were much less expensive this year. If during previous years a kilogram of grape was bought by 130 drams (34 cents), then this year it was 80-100 drams (20-25 cents),” Harutyunyan concludes.