Other local Armenian producers are producing look-alikes to Yerevan Brandy Company’s (YBC) premium brands using imported wine spirits, substandard spirits or even grain spirits as a foundation, reads the WikiLeaks-publiched cable.

Former YBC President Herve Caroff said look-alike products are threatening

YBC’s market share, complaining about the Noy Wine and Brandy factory owned by influential businessman-turned-politician Gagik Tsarukyan

“The Noy factory has the right to use the Ararat seal for its products, but was expected to use that seal for wines, not brandy.  That firm recently has begun producing look-alike brandy of questionable provenance.  Caroff told us he had spoken with the Ministry of Agriculture about setting up a commission to monitor brandy quality in Armenia, but was discouraged about the commission’s prospects when he was told that brandy production had become a lucrative business for influential people,” the document reads.

Caroff claims that official grape harvest statistics are exaggerated to conceal the illegal production of faux-brandy by YBC’s competitors.  In 2005, the grape harvest in Armenia was

officially 130,000 tons, but Caroff claims that actual production was no more than 60,000.  According to Caroff, companies which have been in existence for five or six years are selling “twenty-year old” brandy, a clear sign of fraud.