Areni

Areni gives its name to Armenia's flagship red grape and sits at the centre of a winemaking tradition that archaeology has pushed back further than anywhere else. In a cave complex just outside the village, excavators found a wine press, fermentation vats and drinking cups dated to around 4100 BC — the oldest known winery in the world.

The same cave, Areni-1, produced another remarkable find: a leather shoe, perfectly preserved in sheep dung for more than five thousand years, and still the oldest complete leather footwear ever discovered.

Today the village is lined with family cellars where the tasting is informal and the pours are generous. The Areni noir grape, thin-skinned and high in acid, makes a lighter red than most visitors expect from a country this warm.