Regardless of whether Noah truly planted Armenia’s first vineyard after his Ark washed up on Mount Ararat, the country’s wine history is ancient. The region of Vayots Dzor claims to be home to the oldest winery in the world, in operation some 6,100 years ago. Discovered in 2007, the Areni-1 cave complex held evidence of large-scale wine production and the likely domestication of vines.

Some think wine consumption reaches back even further. Patrick McGovern, scientific director of biomolecular archaeology project for cuisine, fermented beverages and health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum, found traces of wine on an 8,000-year-old Stone Age shard of pottery retrieved on a modern-day Georgian site.

While exact details of ancient winemaking remain romantically murky, ancient texts authenticated by historians like McGovern offer a glimpse of Armenia’s ancestral glory. In his book Ancient Wine, McGovern details how 8th century B.C. Urartian monarchs, an Iron Age kingdom that ruled the Armenian Highlands, dubbed Armenia “the land of the vineyards.” The Assyrians and Greeks also referenced Armenian wine in various texts.

The progression of Armenian wine ended when the Soviet Red Army invaded in 1920. Two years later, the country was merged into the Transcaucasian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. In 1936, it became the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, or Soviet Armenia.

With the abolition of private enterprise, innovation came to a halt. The Soviets converted wineries into processing plants, and vineyards turned over fruit for brandy distillation or bulk wine production.

To increase volume, vineyards were planted in unfavorable locations, while others went neglected or abandoned. The wines once coveted by Assyrian rulers and traded with the Babylonian empire fell from grace.

In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Armenia regained its sovereignty. Young Armenians and those with investment money began to embrace the region’s ancient techniques and storied wine culture. In other words, Armenia has the distinction of being the youngest oldest wine industry in the world.