🇦🇲 “HALDE WINE FESTIVAL 2025” ~ ARMENIA : MT. ARAGATS

MOUNT ARAGATS – A 4 peaked volcano massif with its highest peak being 4090m and the highest peak in Armenia

This wine is aged for 24 months at the bottom of Lake Kari on Aragats at 3185m above sea level

We drove to LAKE KARI, which is a freshwater lake, after getting picked up by a minibus on Moskovyan, there were 16 wine-heads on this tour and we were allll pretty excited and wondering what this festival entails! Elena knows and she was pretty keen to get there and get into it!

We had a bit over an hr to drive up to Mount Aragats and to Lake Kari – we all had some coffee which Edwin kindly made for us all and we excitedly chattered all the way to the top

As we climbed up and saw the snow capped peaks of Mt Aragats – even though it was a hot day it seemed to be cold up there!

We saw many farmers with their animals wandering around this area and we had a stop to take some photos of the animals and the beautiful mountains

We passed by closely to the snow

We got to Lake Kari and the surrounding buildings which include a restaurant as well as the Cosmic Ray Station

We explored the surrounds of Lake Kari and also the Cosmic Ray Research Station which was quite interesting!

The festival was all ready for our group as well as the others including a tent with food and plenty of non stop wine!

We enjoyed an amazing day with an awesome view of the Lake and the snow capped mountains – we had fresh beautiful food and lovely wine with the most perfect weather

Non stop wine!

One of my most fav photos of the lake, knowing there is wine under there somewhere

The team went out and sent down a scuba diver to look for the wine…

Our group got a bottle of white wine and put it to chill in the lake for a while… the water was cold so it worked well!

We all watched the scuba diver trying to find the bottles while we chatted away and had our wine and food

I went for a walk to the other side of the Lake as I saw a spread of purple over the grass and it looked wonderful against the blue of the lake and the white of the snow!

Looking back towards the festival and hearing all the laughter and chatting and music patiently waiting for the wine

And I made it to the snow! It was slowly melting…

… and leaving a small river of water flowing from the snow to the lake

Looking up, still some hike to go to reach the very top

Heading back to the festival, found out they hadn’t found the wine yet!

But no one was too worried as there was plenty of food and wine for the rest of the day to enjoy

We also had the option to visit the observatory and have a tour of this interesting and weird building…

Very ancient looking soviet contraptions nearby being used by the observatory

Meanwhile the scuba diver is looking really tired and waiting to recover from his unsuccessful dives

Heading down into the bowel of the observatory…

It really was old and soviet looking! there were still the old (working) equipment of the soviet era

The really dodgy hand made by cement stairs leading up to another underground level

So when we emerged from the Soviet by bones… we found the Halde team with last years wine as compensation as the new one hasn’t been found!

The wine was VERY yummy and they were generous with the portions as we kept going back for more!

You can see the dirt still on the unlabelled bottles

Everyone was merry even though we didn’t find the treasure!

A great festival and a lovely wine filled experience of Halde and Lake Kari on Mt Aragats on a very beautiful day with perfect new found and old friends, wine and great food!

Thanks Armenia&Beyond!

13 JUL 2025

** UPDATED **

We were invited to Halde Wine bar to try the now found bottles!