I dedicated myself to wine . I rejoice and live by this business. I work seven days a week, but I get tremendous pleasure from it. This is my release . I don't notice how the days pass," this is how Artyom speaks about his work.
The events thanks to which Artyom Mkrtchyan became a sommelier can be called truly fateful! The path toward this profession began in 2013, when Artyom, then a university student in St. Petersburg, accidentally got to dine with the owner of a large wine trading company. Unexpectedly for the future sommelier, that meeting became an important starting point in the profession. He realized that wine is something more than just an alcoholic drink. After several relocations, Artyom settled in Rostov-on-Don, where he began working as a waiter in a local wine boutique restaurant, continuing to study wine culture. Two months later, he was able to enter the Sommelier Academy at Mozart Wine House.
Academy - work - mastering the craft - a few hours of sleep: that was the rhythm of the future sommelier's life. It took Artyom 2 years after graduating from the Academy to work his way up from a busboy to the maître d' of the Pinot Noir restaurant. At the same time, he received a job offer from the Mozart Wine House Academy. Some time later, after an internship at a Michelin restaurant in Berlin, the young sommelier began lecturing at the academy on wine service and international etiquette. At the same time, he began to conduct wine tasting sessions for various large companies. But Artyom was still asking himself, did he really want to do this?
In 2019, Artyom realized that it was time for a change – he needed to try something new. The sommelier quit the restaurant and the academy. Artyom got a job at the world's largest cruise company, Carnival Cruise Line, and went to the United States of America. It was an incredible experience and, according to the sommelier, during his work on the cruise liner, he saw more than in his entire youth. In the summer of 2020, Artyom returned to Armenia and began studying the wine history of Alsace (a wine region in northern France). Then Artyom came up with a brilliant idea: why not do something similar in Armenia, if there are wineries and vineyards with ancient history in the country?
"I had a business partner, Artur Martirosyan. He is the greatest lover of wine in Armenia. I came to him with a project proposal, and he agreed. He suggested starting with the development of the site, found a designer and a copywriter, so we started the development of the site vini.am (hyperlink). It is a noncommercial portal that promotes and develops the wine industry and culture in Armenia and abroad."
The main slogan of the portal vini.am is "Every Armenian Wine". This means that the site contains information about all wineries and wines of Armenia. There had been no such online platform in the country, so Artyom felt huge responsibility when launching the first portal of this type. Vini.am is an extensive wine guide with information about Armenian wines and Armenian winemaking. The sommelier and his partners have invested a lot of time and effort into this project. The main idea of the project is that it should be useful to everyone. The site was launched in August 2021, and its opening was celebrated with a large-scale event!
Vini.am available in Armenian, English, and Russian. Artyom writes the articles himself, introducing the readers to the given winery or wine and telling how they were created, classifying wineries and describing how they produce and export wine.10-15 of his author's articles have already been published on the site, and their number is growing every week. The platform also describes in detail each wine-growing region of Armenia in terms of climate and the varieties (autochthonous and breeding) of grapes and wineries.
"We have a whole range of tasting sessions: horizontal, vertical, private, tasting at wineries, blind tastings, tasting of new wine portfolios, wine presentations," says Artyom Mkrtchyan.
Decant - Wine & Spirit is a wine boutique with a beautiful and memorable address 1 Saryan Street. This is a satellite of vini.am and the only place in Armenia where you can find vintage Armenian wines. Artyom carefully collects them from various winemakers and experts. Decant also has a space for lectures on winemaking and various tasting sessions, as well as a huge collection of wine literature and specially designed merch, by which Artyom supports local producers specializing in hand-made crafts.
If you want to plunge into the world of wine, be sure to visit the atmospheric boutique on 1 Saryan Street. This is also the only place in Armenia where you can find nuggets of Armenian wines – unique old wines, rare wines that are not on sale anywhere else and, of course, the rarest collection of wine accessories. Learn all about wine from Artyom, in the Decant wine boutique at 1 Saryan Street.
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