YEREVAN, June 7. /ARKA/. China's Zen Tienking promises to take Armenian wine to China, but not only for treating his relatives, but also for business purposes. He wants to cooperate with several Armenian wine producers. During the annual Yerevan Wine Days Festival this past weekend in Armenia’s capital city, he first stopped by the Areni Winery pavilion.

"This is the first time I am participating in the Yerevan Wine Days. I like the idea. By the way, Armenian wine is really known in different countries. It's a good wine, I hope everyone will appreciate Armenian wine," says the Chinese businessman.

Tigran Simonyan, the Director of Areni Winery, mentioned that three years after Armenia gained independence they started professional winemaking. Now they produce 200,000 bottles of wine a year, about 70% of which is made from the Areni grape variety.

The pomegranate wine is made from harvests brought from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), which further enhances the wine’s flavor. Tigran remembers that he was 5 years old when his parents started making wine. From that day on, he "became infected" with winemaking, and now he is the head of the factory.

"From the beginning I remember the little cellar, how we installed wine corks by hand. There was no equipment at the time. Now we're trying to grow the business. We produce a variety of fruit wines, we produce pomegranate and cherry wines, mostly semi-sweet, sold here and exported to the Russian Federation," Simonyan said.

According to him, the Yerevan Wine Days Festival also contributes to the development of business, since a well-known brand gains more recognition in a few days, especially among foreigners. He believes it is necessary to cooperate with financial institutions in order to attract large markets. In this matter, he trusts Acba bank, which for the second time acted as the general sponsor of the Yerevan Wine Days Festival, partnering this year with the Visa international payment system.

"We have been working with Acba bank for a long time, when it was still called Bank of Peasant Mutual Aid. We have been working with them since then, we have a very effective cooperation. Now with the help of Acba, we have made a new leasing investment in the winery," said Simonyan.

He does not urge to buy only their products. According to him, the priority issue is to popularize Armenian wine worldwide, especially because moderate consumption of wine, regardless of its color, is beneficial to health, and this, in turn, dictates the lifestyle.

More in the video.

Acba bank is controlled by the Central Bank of Armenia. -0-