YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS. Yerevan Wine Days will once again gather wine connoisseurs and enthusiasts in the Armenian capital.

2018 Yerevan Wine Days will take place May 11-12. The festival has a unique outdoor format and will take place in the intersections of downtown’s Saryan, Tumanyan and Pushkin streets, where local winemakers will present more than 200 types of wines from Armenia and Artsakh.

Mr. Mekhak Apresyan, first deputy chairman of the state tourism committee, says although this is the second time that the event is being organized the festival has huge potential of becoming a traditional fest.

“The event enables to present our cuisine, traditions, opportunities of wine tourism. Armenia is presented to the world with a sustainable, safe, attractive and diversified result for tourism,” Mr. Apresyan said.

Yerevan City Hall tourism department Chief Mr. Gevorg Orbelyan highlighted the festival and mentioned its positive feedback.

“As you know, our capital is marking the 2800th anniversary of its foundation this year. The Yerevan City Hall is supporting this process by highlighting the development of even tourism”, he said, thanking the organizers of Yerevan Wine Days. “We can confidently say that this is an anticipated event in the capital”.

Ms. Mary Badalyan, co-founder of EVENTTOURA, the organizer of Yerevan Wine Days, says this year the date of the festival was changed, but according to her it will not impact the celebrative mood.

Badalyan said this year visitors will be offered to buy a coupon-book which enables to taste products of 27 winemakers. Visitors will keep the book, available in Russian and English, as a souvenir after the event. The price of the coupon-book will be roughly 10 dollars.

Areni Festival Foundation direction Ms. Nune Manukyan highlighted Armenia’s great potential of wine tourism development.

“Armenia is known as a country of brandy in the world, but we have all opportunities for presenting high quality wines also,” she said.

The event is expected to attract tourists from Russia, Canada, USA and Europe.

Commenting on the possible impacts of the recent domestic political developments on the festival, Manukyan mentioned that although several cancellations took place among tourists because the initial date of the event was May 4 -5, the cancellations were very few. The new date of the event is May 11-12 and organizers say the cancellations might be restored.

ENGLISH: Editor/Translator - Stepan Kocharyan