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Stuff: Armenian Wine Festival a World Apart

Armenian wine at Areni Wine Festival / Photo: Arty Om

Stuff: Armenian Wine Festival a World Apart

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The cave is dry and dusty. Scattered across its floor are fragments of pots and clay wine jars – some still intact. They have been there for 6100 years.

Coming from Marlborough, where a winery is old if it has been around for 40 years, this is a rather humbling thought.

Although not the earliest evidence of winemaking, it is the world's oldest-known actual winery and the site contained a wine press, fermentation vats, cups, vines and grape seeds. Plus a leather shoe, 5500 years old – the oldest piece of footwear known in the world.

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