Hovaz Wine Rooms: Sparkling Wine Made with Your Own Hands

Dilijan's unique House Wine Rooms invite their guests to immerse themselves in the wine-making world. Visitors can find a cozy store with a wide variety of wines and a bar. However, the most interesting feature is the tasting room, where everyone can participate in the final stages of sparkling wine production and enjoy the fascinating process of creating this drink.

A historical event inspired the unusual name of Hovaz Wines in 2018 - the return of the Caucasus leopard to Armenia, which is listed in the Red Book. The name "Hovaz" means "leopard" in Armenian. Hovaz Wine Rooms opened in Dilijan in late November 2022 as a tasting room. However, new ideas have emerged regarding how to utilize this space. Now, Hovaz Wines offers an alternative way to spend time in Dilijan, allowing guests to immerse themselves in the process of sparkling wine production.

«Our mission is to represent the Armenian wine industry and demonstrate that this region is rich with opportunities. There are already over 300 producers in Armenia, and here you can find a wine for every taste, as our visitors will soon discover," says Nelly, the project coordinator responsible for the wine tasting room.

Wine production is carried out using the traditional method used in the Champagne region of France. The core of this method is that the entire process of transforming wine from still to sparkling occurs inside a bottle, which is then manually inspected by a team of professional winemakers.

The main focus of Hovaz Wine Rooms is the organization of sparkling wine production and the involvement of wine lovers in the process. Tastings are held while serving meat and cheese snacks, which can also be purchased onsite.

How does the process work? Guests visit a room where wines with sediment are stored. This sediment must be removed from the liquid before selling and consuming the wine. Bottles of ready-made wine are placed neck down on special machine stands with cells cut at an angle of 45 degrees. The process is quite simple: guests can do it themselves. The neck freezes in the cooling machine, leaving the sediment behind in the ice. After the bottle is opened, gas helps remove the sediment. Then, a small amount of sulfur dioxide, an antioxidant with an antibacterial function, is added.

In the end, corks and muslets (wires that you can see on champagne bottles) and caps are placed on the bottles. Then, a label is prepared that the visitor can independently attach to the bottle. This way, individual bottles of sparkling wine in a limited edition of 1,500 are produced - their personal number is marked on the back of each bottle's label.

«As experience shows, people enjoy buying a bottle made with their own hands. This is especially true when we talk about the entire process of production. We show how the bottle looks before the remuage (overturning), how it looks with the sediment, and how it eventually ends up at the neck. Making sparkling wine using the traditional method is the most respected, as carbonation occurs naturally. There are other methods where carbon dioxide can be added artificially, but that is not our case, explains Nelly.

Sparkling rose wine under the Hovaz brand is made from the Areni Noir grape variety grown in the Vayotdzor region of Armenia. We also plan to produce wine from the Banants grape variety, which is typical of the Tavush region, one of the major wine-growing regions in the northern part of the country. The Tavush grape is ideal for producing sparkling and white wines, as there are few days of sunshine and the sugar level does not rise too high, so the wine turns out to be low-alcohol and pleasantly acidic.

«We constantly consider attracting interest in the wine industry, winemaking, and wine culture. This is a very interesting and rich subject, and our experience shows that it attracts people a lot," says Nelly. "We understand we are on the right track when we meet tourists from unexpected places like Mauritius, Taiwan, and Bhutan. We couldn't have imagined having guests from such exotic countries. Many people discover the world of winemaking in Armenia for the first time. We tell our guests about other country wineries so they can visit other places as well. They are all different, with their unique features, equipment, and more. Anyone, whether a tourist or local, can find a wine they like in Armenia if guided correctly. Of course, Dilijan is our priority».

Neither the interior nor the furniture affects people's emotions. In addition to the leisure options mentioned above, Hovaz Wine Rooms offers an interesting wine service - guests are waiting for notes with wishes that will come true if they drink sparkling wine. There they also talk about other wine brands and consider it an honor to represent the world of Armenian wine, celebrating the successes of other producers.

Hovaz Wines has ambitious plans to create a wine community in Armenia and have their winery and vineyards, increasing production volumes. We wish them every success!