The French group Pernod Ricard, which owns the Yerevan Brandy Company (YBC), announced in May that all of its subsidiaries around the world will stop exporting alcoholic beverages to Russia.
The move linked to Western sanctions against Moscow raised serious concerns in Armenia about the YBC’s continued operations. The bulk of its brandy, famous across the former Soviet Union, is sold in Russia. More importantly, the company has long been Armenia’s largest wholesale buyer of grapes grown by tens of thousands of farmers.
“[YBC] will not reduce the volume of its purchases compared with the previous years,” Kerobian told journalists. “This was our main concern and it has been dispelled.”
The YBC management has made no statements to that effect, however. It also remains reluctant to officially comment on the future of its exports to Russia. Russian and Armenian media outlets quoted unnamed company sources as saying after the Pernod Ricard announcement that the YBC is continuing brandy shipments to the Russian market.
Other Armenian brandy makers look set to buy fewer grapes this year. They already cut their purchases in 2022, sparking protests by hundreds of angry winegrowers unable to sell their main crop.
“The situation is already uncertain,” Arsen Simonian, a farmer from the wine-growing Ararat province, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Simonian, who owns a large vineyard in the village of Verin Artashat and heads a provincial association of winegrowers, said that about one-fifth of the local farmers have already decided to cut down their vineyards and possibly switch to other crops.
“We do not expect that the entire [2023] grape harvest will be bought,” Kerobian acknowledged earlier this month. “We are now trying to figure out methods for making the two ends meet.”
The minister said on Thursday that the Armenian government will impose stricter quality controls and other regulations on local brandy firms.
“Control of the quality of brandy will definitely lead to a large volume of [grape] purchases,” he said.
Simonian agreed that such oversight could greatly benefit grape farmers. But he questioned the government’s ability to enforce it properly.