A Trip to Greece
Gimlet Beverage Manager Anthony Pieri visited Greece last April in the pursuit of the intangible ‘why’ that makes the wines of this country so deserving of a spot on the world stage.
Here, he writes about his journey uncovering the people and places shaping Greek wine’s quiet renaissance.
By Anthony Pieri
There is a raw, untamed ruggedness to the city of Athens. The streetscape hints at Western Europe, with shallow balconies and wide boulevards, but as we sip our cappuccini in a brand-new café, the building next to us sits in rubble and a stray dog hungrily searches for food scraps. It’s a strange dichotomy. But I’m not here for the cappuccino, nor the cityscape. I headed to Greece for the first time in search of the intangible ‘why’ that makes the wines of this place so inimitable and deserving of a spot on the world stage of classic wine producing countries.
My first visit was to Katima Matsa, a farm founded in 1848 entirely within the Attica (or Attika) sub-region of Central Greece and forty-five minutes’ drive from central Athens. Although centuries of winemaking history rest quietly in the cellars of these sleepy towns, Attica’s gift to the wine world is the (in)famous Retsina, a resinous white wine either drunk salubriously or disdained by Greeks and non-Greeks everywhere. Ktima Matsa began making Retsina in 1904 (and made spirits before that) until the vineyard was acquired by the granddaughter of the founder in the 1970s. Affectionately known as ‘the lady of Malagouzia,’ Roxane Matsa lives and works on the farm, carefully cultivating gnarly, old-vine Malagousia – known to produce explosively aromatic wines that can be moulded into a kaleidoscope of styles beyond retsina. The variety was almost extinct in the 1960s, and thanks to farms like Ktima Matsa, the variety is now widely available to Europe and the world. Roxane’s personality is as bold and authentic as her wines. They both speak to the history of the place and the potential for the future with generosity and vivacity – equally extroverted, well-poised and wise.
Image credit: Roxane Matsa Estate
Image credit: Roxane Matsa Estate
“If it grows together, it goes together” is one of my most useful wine and food pairing tricks – and as we sipped the wines of this place, we nibbled on crostini slathered with myzithra cheese, roasted grapes and spicy olive oil, or tomatoes and salty olives. The true vinous superstars of this visit were a duo of old mistelles brought hesitantly from Roxane’s house cellar – a 1995 Malagouzia and a 1997 Viognier served with a caveat of them never being available for sale. Golden hued and viscous, the wines poured like honey and were redolent with aromas of ginger, honeycomb, lavender and allspice, with monstrous palate weight and intensely persistent finishes that rivalled the most acclaimed dessert wines of the world.
Before I knew it, my head was spinning as the plane was doing that sort of rubbery-jiggly trot down the tarmac, perhaps from underestimating the amount of alcohol in those mistelles.
Next stop: Santorini.
Autochthonous Assyrtiko vines hug the volcanic earth with all their might, fighting against tenacious wind with the help of viticulturists who carefully wrap them in a circular tangle (called a koulouri) to protect what little fruit they can eek out of the barren soil. Two bunches per vine is a pyrrhic victory. The resultant wines have a level of saline intensity and concentration inimitable in the world of wine.
I visited Domaine Sigalas, contender for the most progressive estate on the island. Siglas is the vision of Stellios Boutaris of Kir-Yianni, who has carefully acquired forty hectares on Santorini with a commitment to crafting world class Assyrtikos. The property only produces 200,000 bottles in any vintage which considering the land area, is an impossibly small production. It’s an approach Stellios deems “a dynamic evolution of tradition.” Accounting for only ten percent of that production, the Kavalieros single vineyard Assyrtikos were the shining stars of the visit. The current vintage wines had hallmark sprightly acidity and seaspray terroir, whilst examples a decade in bottle developed into textural gastronomic discoveries. Dinner was at a typical Greek taverna where dishes were shared, and wine opened with reckless aplomb. Fresh seafood everywhere, from prawns to octopus, married seamlessly with the wines from the island.
The single vineyard Assyrtiko wines are the reason I’m here on Santorini – and they shine in their crystalline, concentrated brilliance. Interestingly however, the most memorable wines were the vinsantos . Most often attributed to the Italians, the Greek vinsanto wines possibly trace their roots to Venetian rule of the Cyclades in the thirteenth century and are made in a similar fashion to their Italian counterparts. The result is incredibly age worthy: lusciously sweet, honeyed, elixirs. The youngest we tasted was 2011 and even in its relative youth the wine was brilliant.
From the sparkling Aegean, it would take two plane journeys and a five hour bus ride to our next destination and as I plonked myself in the jump seat of the van, the clouds gave way to crisp blue sky and a two-lane highway, fringed with distant and jagged, fallen snow framed mountains – welcome to Macedonia. This area is an administrative part of northern Greece with a complex geo-political history, but politics aside, I’m here for the Xinomavro. In the Naoussa region, winegrowers craft structured, long living red wines sometimes considered Nebbiolo imposters for their high acidity and adhesive, powerful tannin. Together with the Assyrtiko wines of the Aegean, Xinomavro plays an important role in the definition of contemporary Greek wine to the world, but the most exciting Xinomavros are being grown and made in Amyndeon, a cold, wind-snapped region west of the more famous Naoussa. Here, altitude is key to the preservation of the variety’s trademark acidity and the development of those puckering tannins. It’s no surprise that the most interesting examples are fermented gently in stainless steel, raised in amphorae for nearly two years and made in miniscule quantities that make global export laughable.
As row boats bobbled in the small harbour at Porto Rafti just outside of Athens and the sun shimmered on the calm sea, I nibbled on octopus and sipped an Assyrtiko from Santorini – very different than our cappuccino a week earlier. I leave Greece with a more sophisticated understanding of the importance of the vinous history here, as well as a deeper knowledge of the variability of the styles of wine produced in this country full of dynamic landscapes, big personalities, and optimistic ambition.
