Glinavos Paleokerisio 2019

If you are at all adventurous in your taste for wine, you really must try this one.

As the label is all Greek, let me start by deconstructing it to the best of my ability. Paleokerisio is the name of the wine, and it is produced by Ktima Glinavos, where ktima means estate. It is a mere 10.5% ABV, and comes in a crown-capped 50cl bottle (which is a pain to stack in a wine fridge as the bottles teeter worryingly on top of each other due to the barrelling in the shape). Merchants seem to interpret the “19” in the lot number as the vintage indication, and I’m sure that is correct, but formally speaking this is a non-vintage wine.

The wine is designated PGI Ionnina, and thus comes from a mountainous region in north-west Greece. The region does not extend as far west as the coast, but has Albania to the north, and the Greek regions of Macedonia and Thessaly to the east. It is around 100km north to south, and 75km east to west, and thus has a wide range of growing conditions. Sadly, I do not know which part this particular wine comes from.

It is made from 97% Debina, and 3% Vlachiko, which are both varieties local to the region. Debina is a green grape, and Vlachiko red.

The name Paleokerisio means “like the old times”, which is the first hint at why you might find this wine is particularly interesting – it is made in the old style of the region. This means the grapes are fermented on their skins, and the wine is semi-dry and semi-sparkling. But the viticulture is not organic, and the second fermentation is in tank, so its production is maybe not quite as old-style as you might think. Nevertheless, it is interesting and, more-importantly, delicious. Yes, it’s an orange wine, though the small percentage of red grapes seems to give the amber colour a ruddy tinge.

I’d describe the colour as a deep ruddy-amber, or a palish ruddy-brown. The nose is not intense, but has some of that phenolic character you tend to get on orange wines. It is very slightly sparkling, off-dry, has highish acidity, and a slight astringency and bitterness. I repeat: it’s delicious. The sharpness, astringency and bitterness adds a refreshing edge to the wine, but is nicely balanced by its slight sweetness *****

Generally I like orange wines at cellar temperature, but I think this one benefits from being properly fridge-cold. It is great to drink by itself, and also with food from the eastern Mediterranean, from Greece to the Middle-East, or even with spicier Indian food. Yes, I know that is a pretty broad brush, but I think the wine is very flexible. As I see it, the main exceptions are that it would not work so well as an aperitif, nor with very delicate fish dishes, or dark meats in a heavy sauce.

If you are interested in buying some, I suggest you google “Glinavos Paleokerisio”, and expect to pay £12-14 for the 50cl bottle.  I got my last lot as a case from Pure Wines, for £12.50 each. Prior to that I used Wine and Greene, but the last time I looked they no longer had it in stock. If you make my suggested search, you will also find Julia Harding’s review of the wine, which I only noticed after I writing my tasting note. I was pleased to see that she too was enthusiastic about it, but we differ on the ideal serving temperature.

In addition to the label and my palate, information for this post came from merchants’ websites, The Wines of Greece by Konstantinos Lazarakis (also recommended), and Google Maps.

Author: Steve Slatcher

Wine enthusiast

One thought on “Glinavos Paleokerisio 2019”

  1. I like the sound of this one Steve and must start a visit list in case we do get away . So many really good Greek wines.
    Thanks for the heads up.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *