Yerevan Ararat Brandy Factory, officially known as the Yerevan Ararat Brandy-Wine-Vodka Factory, commonly known by its famous brand Noy, is a leading Armenian brandy production company in Yerevan, Armenia, currently owned by Gagik Tsarukyan's Multi Group Concern. It was founded in 1877 during the rule of the Russian Empire. The factory is located on the left bank of the Hrazdan River at the centre of Yerevan, occupying the area of the historic Erivan Fortress.
History
Nerses Tairyan was a well-known merchant and philanthropist. In 1877 he started industrial production of wine, and later brandy in 1887, at the territory of the former Erivan Fortress. Hovhannes Aivazovsky, who was a relative of Tairyan, helped him to build the factory.
In 1899 Nerses Tairyan leased the factory to Nikolay Shustov, who purchased it a year later for 50,000 roubles. Having established his own business in Moscow in 1863, Shustov became one of the first producers of brandy in Russia. Already in the 1870s "Shustov and Sons" company managed to take into its hands 80% of brandy-wine-vodka-liqueur production in the Russian Empire. In 1901 Nikolay Shustov sent samples of brandy to an exhibition in Paris. In 1899 Shustov invited Kyrill Silchenko, who had just finished Nikitin's school of wine-making, to work at the factory.
The current facilities of the Yerevan Ararat Brandy Factory were built in 1938 on the site of the former sardar palace of the Erivan Fortress.[1]