September 24

September 24, 1716: Four wine-growing regions were first identified in a prohibition issued by the Grand Duke of Tuscany Cosimo III: Chianti (which roughly comprises the present-day Chianti Classico region), Pomino, Carmignano, and Valdarno Superiore. The first use of DOC in a legal context is this notification.

September 24, 1920: Beginning this day, through the end of November of the same year, Armenia came under Soviet rule. The Trans-Caucasian Soviet Socialist Republic admitted Armenia in 1922 after local communists seized power following a Soviet Red Army invasion of Armenia in late 1920. In 1936, the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic was officially founded. The possibility of developing bilateral ties between Armenia and the United States emerged when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. As part of the Soviet Union, wine output increased nine times between 1940 and 1985, brandy production increased seventeen times, and sparkling wine production increased ten times between 1960 and 1986. Armenia processed 14–15 million decaliters of wine from an average of around 210 thousand tonnes of grapes per year in the 1980s. Two million were used to make brandy, while the remaining one million were used to make wine.

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Hero image: Tom Chance / Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 2.0. Source: Wikimedia Commons.