In 2022 and 2023 I led seven tours to Greece, focusing on the Peloponnese.
We stayed in Napflio, a beautiful port town, popular with Athenians at the weekend, with lovely cafés and restaurants, and a very splendid fortress accessed by 1,000 steps (a few hardy souls managed this!). The annual boat show was just starting or ending during a couple of the tours, which provided opportunities to ogle at some very impressive boats (ships?).
Each tour commenced with a meal, either at the 3Sixty Restaurant or at the Arapakos Restaurant. This established the bounteous nature of Greek cuisine, with its emphasis on fresh, local ingredients, and gave us our first insights into Greek wines.
On each tour we explored in detail the three main regions of the Peloponnese. For anyone arriving with preconceptions about Greek wine established in the 60s and 70s, the revelation was that a combination of mountainous terrain and sea breezes creates perfect conditions to make very high quality wines with beautiful acidity, complex flavours and the potential to evolve.
In Mantinia the Moschofilero grape is king. This indigenous variety has pink skins and produces white and rosé wines, dry and sweet.
At the Kalogris winery near the village of Kapsia we were guided by Evangelos and Christina, and their daughters Sandi and Tatiana. This lovely family is passionate about their land, where Evangelos planted grapes in 1980. Organically run, there were swathes of clover and fetches adding to the soil’s natural fertility, and at the traditional family homestead the focus is on ‘slow’ winemaking in the ancient cool cellars. On each tour the family entertained us to traditional Greek hospitality in their courtyard, a truly memorable experience.
The Tselepos estate is one of the most highly regarded in Mantinia and they have pioneered the development of indigenous Greek varieties – particularly Moschofilero. We investigated a range of vessels including a mix of amphora that they use for ageing, and their sparkling wine cellar – which was fascinating as they had applied for PDO recognition for sparkling wine back in 2011 and it took ten years for the EU to finally approve the application. Their excellent Blanc de Gris affirmed Moschofilero’s incredible ability to produce a variety of styles and to age – as the comparison of 2022 and 2015 vintages demonstrated.
Nemea is home to the Agiorgitiko grape variety, a deep coloured grape that has dark fruits and smoky notes on the nose and palate, which can be made in a variety of styles from light and fruity to complex, oak matured and even sweet when made from sun dried grapes. The region also produces white and red wines made from Greek and international varieties and each of our visits showed what a fantastic range of wines is being made.
Paintings depicting Hercules slaying the lion (whose blood the Agiorgitiko grape’s juice is said to symbolise) and Saint George, after whom the grape is named, were at the modern Constantin Gofas winery, but the highlight of this visit was the walk through the vineyards to an idyllic shady glade beside a stream followed by a tasting under the trees. Their wines ranged from light whites through extremely high quality reds including the Vasilio Grande Reserve 2015), and a Vin de Zemnes sweet wine, that had spent 5 years in barrel and 5 years in bottle and was a perfect match for chocolate.
Kiriakos Koroniotis’s winery, just inside the Nemea PDO, was originally an olive grove. Returning from a career in chemical engineering and agricultural studies in Holland, Kiriakos used his knowledge to set up a vineyard and winery. He sources grapes from across the Peloponnese, and his ‘Argus’ Syrah, made form grapes grown at 1,000m near Patras was stunning. He hosted every visit, and we drank his wines along with local breads and cheeses among the laboratory equipment in their winery.
The Palivos estate is a family owned winery. They put great focus on the nuances of terroir, with grapes from the higher altitude vineyard producing wine of greater concentration and structure. Our tasting in the barrel cellar confirmed the diversity and quality of wine, and their flagship Nohma which is a blend of Cabernet and Merlot and Agiorgitiko was a terrific wine with great ageing potential.
The Seméli estate is probably the most famous in Nemea, high in the mountains, its modern winery overlooks the Nemea valley to the south and the gulf of Corinth to the north. Here we explored the developing terroir focus of Greek wines, with wines made from the Koutsi sub region, including a 2003 vintage of their Grande Reserve – lovely dried fruit, forest floor flavours and a silky smooth mouthfeel. Our lunch was a five course extravaganza that required some sleeping off during the coach return journey!
Patras, overlooking the gulf of Corinth, is home to the Mavrodaphne grape variety, which for centuries has been made into sweet red wine.
Tetramythos is one of Greece’s most prestigious wineries, and our visit showed why. The splendid modern winery was rebuilt after a fire in 2007, and there are amazing views across the mountains to the gulf. Vineyards are on steep slopes at altitudes between 650-1,000m, many north facing which helps to keep the vines cool. The white grape Roditis is often used in retsina across Greece, and we enjoyed a modern version of retsina, made with just 1kg of pine resin per 1,000 litres of wine – adding a hint of pine to its complexity and making not a few converts to this much maligned wine style. Their ‘pure’ Roditis was a lovely delicate wine, with blossom and green apple flavours, while the Black of Kalvryta, a nearly extinct black grape variety making a comeback was fresh, fruity with grippy tannins. Their Mavrodaphne (which we enjoyed with a sour cherry compote finishing our fabulous lunch), was glorious – naturally high in alcohol though not fortified, with medium sweetness and a combination of Christmas cake and blackcurrant jam flavours.
The tours ended with our customary final night dinner, at the 3Sixty or Arapakos. On each of the three tours we celebrated the wonderful people we had met, the incredible quality of the wines we had tasted and the beauty and relaxed ambience of our surroundings. Some even returned for another tour the following year bringing friends!
For some of us a postscript visit was to Attica, which is next door to Athens airport. Because on one trip our connecting return flight was in the evening we were able to visit the Nikolou family in their traditional winery (also their home) in Koropi. Vassilis, Rania and son Evangelos made us so welcome, and told us their family story which started in 1875 when the newly independent state granted land and permission to make wine. Vassilis lectures in oenology, and is very focussed on white wines made from the Savatiao grape. Across Greece this is used to make Retsina, but when yields are controlled and wine making is accomplished, it makes superb wines. Read more about this visit.
