SUB-ZERO WINE BLOG

Greece has one of the oldest winemaking cultures on the planet, dating back to the second millennium BC. The ancient Greeks used wine for many of the same purposes we do: to mark special occasions, as a component of religious ritual, and for therapeutic reasons. And let’s not forget plain old feasting and reveling. The Greeks rightly considered any people without wine to be utterly barbaric. Extensive Greek colonization of the Mediterranean literally sowed the seeds of the wine culture that Europe still enjoys today. But the Ottoman period and subsequent social chaos in the early twentieth century put a serious damper on the modern Greek wine industry. It’s just now coming back into its own.

In discovering Greek wine, most of us will bump up against the language barrier. Savvier exporters use labels transliterated (often inconsistently) into the Roman alphabet, but sometimes that only leads to further confusion. Native Greek grape names—Xinomavro, Moscophilero, Agiorgitiko—just seem daunting, with all their prickly x’s and k’s. The wines are made in places some of us can’t pronounce, like the Khalkhidhikhi Peninsula—and others that we remember from grade school (think Sparta). Socrates had the best advice: “Try it, you’ll like it.”

The major red varietals are Agiorgitiko, Limnio, and Xinomavro. Whites include Assyrtiko, Malvasia, and Savatiano. The Savatiano grape is traditionally used to make retsina, the inexpensive resin-flavored wine popular in local tavernas, but contemporary Greek winemakers are trying hard today to overcome Greek wine’s retsina-tinged reputation. Traditional varietals may have more local character, but international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay are becoming increasingly common. The best dessert wines in Greece are made on the islands of Samos and Limnos from the sweet, aromatic Muscat grape.