I feel that any attempt at being systematic in a post on producers and their wines would be too presumptuous after one visit to the island, but I would still like to write a little about what I found and why I am so excited about Santorini wines. So am simply going to let you know what made the biggest impact on me, and hope that you will bear in mind that there are all manner of reasons why an experience may or may not have impressed at any particular moment. YMMV and all that.
If you haven’t seen them already, for a bit of background you might like to take a look at my blog posts that lead up to this one: Santorini as a destination for wine lovers, Santorini vineyards and vines and Santorini grape varieties and wine styles.
Wine with food
Let’s start with the wines I drank – not merely tasted – in restaurants. This of course is generally the best way to experience wines, and with the highly acidic Santorini dry Assyrtikos it is even more true than for most. With food Assyrtiko shines. Seafood is the obvious choice, and here is the aftermath at Fratzekos Fish Tavern in Perissa. While there is food on the plate I have more important things to do than take pictures.
The wine on the table is Thalassitis 2015, a Santorini PDO Assyrtiko wine made by Gaia that retails in the UK for around £18, or €17.00 from the producer. This is bone dry, crisp, sharp, and refreshing. It is intense and powerful, more mineral than fruit, possibly even a hint of Riesling-like petrol, but any fruit is definitely citric – lime, I think. If you want to understand Assyrtiko typicity, without getting confused by oak, oxidation or wild yeasts, this wine is a great place to start.
At another seafood restaurant, Melina’s Tavern, mentioned in my first post on Santorini, we had another Santorini PDO Assyrtiko. This was a 2014 from Boutari. This was not tried side-by-side with the Thalassitis, so I am relying on memory and my tasting notes, but I found the Boutari to be quite similar, and it is good for the same reasons. The differences I noted were that I found it even more difficult to identify the citrus fruit that the wine reminded me of, and there were hints of herbs and spices. I don’t think this is available in the UK, but looking at other Boutari wines I would guess would be a few Euros cheaper than the Thalassitis.
The final restaurant wine I’d like to mention is Gavalas Winery Santorini Natural Ferment 2015, also an Assyrtiko. This too was sharp and dry, but was aromatically more interesting, presumably due to the wild yeasts. Sweet ripe fruit, with a certain richness: orange, peach apricot. And a herby complexity. €16.00 from the producer, of which more later. I recommend the wine, but not the restaurant – Feggera in Megalochori.
Actually there is one more restaurant wine that deserves a mention, but the mention is a bit tricky as it was served to us in a jug, and described as homemade. It was red, thin, acidic and tannic, but alongside food it worked well – a heck of a lot better than the bottled and branded industrial plonk you get in the UK. Was this the Brusca style I wonder? Maybe not alcoholic enough to be Brusca. Get it at Tzanakis Tavern in Megalochori, where there is the friendliest welcome, and a group of local men eat and drink every day. And where every so often an incongruous bus-load of tourists is delivered for an evening of typical Greek food.
A couple of producers
The first one I’ll mention is Santo Wines, which is the Santorini coop. But it is not just any old wine coop, it is large, and has been hugely influential in supporting growers on the island, and in promoting Santorini wine in the rest of Greece and abroad. To make your mark in export markets you need to be able to supply good quality wine in large quantities, and Santo Wines is geared up to that task. It is also geared up to cater for the wine tourist, with large seating areas indoors and outside, in the shade and in the sun, where you can drink wine and eat light food. Apparently it can get busy in summer, but when we visited in October there was plenty of space. It is modern, smart, and the views are stunning.They have a large range of wines, but I shall mention just a couple. The first is, I believe, a style that is unique to Santo Wines: a sparkling Assyrtiko, made using the traditional method. Ours was of the 2013 vintage. This is maybe not as good as some of the other wines I mention here but – put it like this – it is one of the few wines I squeezed into my aircraft hold luggage to bring back. Minerally apple nose, again almost Riesling-like, highish acidity, and dry. If you’ve been following my tasting notes so far, you would expect nothing less of Assyrtiko, but add to that the fizz and you get an amazingly refreshing drink that would work well as an aperitif, or to drink with seafood. I actually first tried this at breakfast in a village in Northern Greece, and I liked it then too. It’s €23.00 at Santo Wines. You can pick up some seriously good stuff for that price in the Champagne region, so it is not exactly a bargain, but how many opportunities does a British wine geek get to drink sparkling Assyrtiko? The second wine I bought at Santo Wines was not cheap either: €70.00 for 50cl of 2004 Vinsanto. 85% Assyrtiko 15% Aidani, aged in oak for 3 years, 6 in tanks, bottled in 2013. I tasted this as a sip in the Santo Wines’ shop, along with a few other older Vinsantos, some cheaper and others more expensive, and this was by far the one I preferred most. Sadly no tasting notes for these older Vinsantos, but the 2004 would undoubtedly have a good whack of volatile acidity, as that is one of the things I look for in these wines.
The other producer visit I’ll cover here is Gavalas, which has an equally pleasant tasting area, but one that is very different to Santo Wines. It is in a quiet and cool winery courtyard, in the centre of the village of Megalochori. The deal is that you can taste as many wines as you want, but pay one or two Euros (actually €1.65 or something like that) for each wine. My wife and I tasted all 10 wines they had available and, as the pours were generous for a tasting, we shared a glass. I’ve already mentioned their Natural Ferment Assyrtiko, so the wine I’d like to describe here is Xenoloo 2015. It is a blend of three relatively rare grape varieties – 50% Mavrotragano, 45% Voudomato and 5% Athiri. This pale ruby wine is intense and fresh on the nose, with red fruit aromas. I thought it maybe had a touch of brett stink too, but whatever it was the effect was positive. Very sharp, and quite tannic, in the mouth. Another purchase for hold luggage at €14.30. The Mavrotragano 2015 was also good, but that was a barrel sample.
Other wines that stood out
Another couple of other Vinsantos I really liked were Agyros 1992, and Gaia 2005, at €55.00 and €35.00 for 50cl from their respective producers. They were both quite volatile, with good raisiny flavours, and sweet of course, but I thought the Gaia was sharper, fruity, and with more volatile.
At Vassaltis, their 2015 Santorini Assyrtiko impressed all four of us at the tasting table – see label image with the reflection selfies of its admirers. Like many Assyrtikos, this was highish in acidity had great minerality, and I at least thought it had a little whiff of petrol. But unlike many Assyrtikos, this was not so aggressive, and had a gentle elegance – something that perhaps came from the 6 months of lees aging. This was a true stand-out wine for me, and I made sure a bottle of it accompanied me home. €17.00 from the producer. We also tried the 2014 by the way, which was Vassaltis’ first attempt at this wine, made with no added sulphur. To me this tasted overwhelmingly of Riesling-petrol, and was not nearly as successful. Another memorably good wine however was their Aidani 2015. This was lowish in acidity, gentle, floral and perfumed. A lovely wine, but only available at the winery as a mere 700 bottles were made. It was on sale at €19.50.
In our Boutari tasting, which actually did not include the Boutari Assyrtiko mentioned above, their Selladia 2013 impressed most. This is from a Boutari estate on the island, and is a 50/50 blend of Assyrtiko and Aidani, and was another bottle I bought – for €15.55 – to bring back with me. Apart from giving it a good score, my notes from Santorini were even briefer than usual: it was a bit like an Assyrtiko, but more muted rounded and full. However, the bottle I opened at home allowed me to find more words. On the nose, intense, fresh, honey, peach and apricot, with a certain lactic note. Medium high acidity, and dry. In addition to what I got on the nose, there was also some lime on the palate. I was intrigued that this wine appeared to be simultaneously sharp and soft, the softness coming from the lactic character.
Finally a couple of Sigalas wines. I liked their Mavrotragano 2014 a lot, but again my notes were very brief: intense, aromatic, bright red fruit, medium high acidity, medium tannin. In conjunction with a very good score, that does however give me an impression of the wine – it was that combination of intense bright red fruit with acidity and tannin that made it so lip-smackingly good. It would have been €35.20 at Sigalas – if they had any left to sell that is, which they didn’t. The other wine I’m going to mention is Apiliotis 2009. This is 100% Mandilaria, and a red naturally sweet wine made from grapes that have been sun-dried for 10-12 days, and then oak-aged for at least 24 months, 9.0% ABV, and €27.00 for 50cl. On the nose, this was intense, volatile, and carried notes of cherry. Highish acidity and with detectable astringency, it was smooth and very sweet. I rarely like sweet red wines, but this won me over with its edginess.
Santorini is not the place to look for wine bargains. It is expensive by Greek standards, and not really cheap by any standards. But there is excellent quality to be found, and the wine has much to offer that is special and unique to the island. It is definitely worth exploring. And all that really applies to the rest of Santorini too.
(To be meticulous about following my own rules, I should disclose that I was given special treatment during the visits to Santo Wines and Boutari, for which I was very grateful, and was not charged for anything there apart from bottles of wine I wanted take home. Everything else on the trip was paid for in the normal way.)