Page 9 - Code de Vino, # 16/22, s/s 2018
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9     Wine Club                                                                          Code de Vino #16










































        — Vahe, are you aware of your new position?           bodegas, buy 1.5 liters of wine for five hundred lira... You
                                                              know, friends, a guitar, some wine... Every day, every day...
        — Yes, they’ve told me I’m wine president of Armenia now.  Then I went to America, started working in different
                                                              restaurants, and attended a restaurant college. Both at
                                                              work and during my free time I was drinking different wines.
        — What a great opportunity to meet a president without
        all the formalities! How did you come into wine, and
        what is your source of inspiration?                   — What were you working as?

        — My first really good wine was a Chianti. It was so different   — I was a waiter and bartender.
        from all the wine I had tried before it in Italy, and even ever,
        for that matter! I was 19 back then, and I remember my first
        sip: “wow, this is an awesome wine!”                  — Like a true president.

                                                              — In college, I started as a waiter, and in 1985, I opened
        — Do you remember its name?                           my own restaurant.

        — It was a wine my friend’s grandma made in Italy. She
        was making Chianti, and we were drinking almost a liter   — Yes, this is the path of a real president! All jokes
        every day. It is such a vivid memory of Italy for me. Then I   aside, this title wasn’t given to you on a whim... you
        moved to California.                                  made it all this way on your own.
                                                              — Exactly, I didn’t inherit it or anything. I’m a proletarian
        — So it was in Italy where you had your first revelation.   president! (Laughs.) The restaurant was in Berkeley,
        What region were you in?                              California. It was very Mediterranean: wines from Tuscany,
                                                              Italian, French, and Spanish cuisine... it turned out to be
        — I was in Gela, Sicily. We used to drive around the   one of the most popular restaurants in California.
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