Blog

A Taste of Santorini

 

---

For years I’d wanted to visit Santorini. All the beautiful pictures you see, the wine…how could I not have wanted to visit? Then a few years ago, I started working for Vassaltis Vineyards which brought me in for a visit. I loved Vassaltis, and have posted about them for a #WinePW event, but the island…I’ve been to some pretty heavily touristed places in my life. Heck, I’ve lived in several. But Santorini, even in May, was so overrun. Yikes.

I’m happy to have visited and check that off my bucket list. But from now on, I will let all my Santorini travel be in the glass! So, let’s take a little tour, shall we? The island is home to three different PDOs with PDO Santorini covering most of the wine produced. All PDO Santorini wines must be dry white wines made with a minimum of 85% Assyrtiko. The remaining 20% can be either/or/combination of Aidani and Athiri.

Artemis Karamolegos Santorini, 2020

Artemis Karamolegos has roots back to 1952 with the owner’s grandfather. In 2004, Artemis Karamolegos took his eponymously named winery onto the modern winemaking scene and began making the winery’s first PDO wines. 

The Artemis Karamolegos Santorini is more or less 90% Assyrtiko and 10% of Athiri and Aidani. However, the exactness of the final blend varies from vintage to vintage. What doesn’t vary, is the winery’s practice of letting the wine mature on its lees for at least five months prior to bottling. As soon as I got my nose in the glass I could smell Santorini, both literally and metaphorically. Rocks wet with sea water and crushed shells. Fresh lime and night blooming jasmine followed with  the beginnings of stone fruit flavors. Dry, elegant, with bright acidity softened by the lees ageing. 

I went full Greek and paired this with a Greek salad and pork gyros. Yum.  

Koutsoyannopoulos Santorini, 2019

Koutsogiannopoulos is not just a winery but also a wine museum. The museum is buried eight meters underground and occupies 300 meters of antique winemaking paraphernalia. Happily the winery’s actual winemaking facilities are modern and in the hands of fourth-generation owner, Giorgos Koutsogiannopoulos.

The nose was a happy jumble of quince and pear kissed by fresh lemon and white flowers. Round acidity with excellent structure, palate flavors presented more floral and citrus with kumquat and Easter lily. 

Big kudos to Koutsogiannopoulos on their back labels! I really dislike an uninformative back label (ahem 80% of Turkish wineries). Koutsogiannopoulos goes entirely the other way providing information about the vintage weather, vineyard composition, elevation, etc. Well done. 

Art Space Santorini, 2018

Like Koutsogiannopoulos, Art Space Santorini is more than a winery. In addition to housing its own of antique winemaking paraphernalia, it has several halls of art gallery space dedicated to contemporary paintings and sculptures. This is one of the few wineries I visited during my trip to Santorini so, I can say firsthand that it houses very interesting art. 

Made with free-run juice only and fermented on indigenous yeasts, this 100% Assyrtiko was hands down one of the best Santorini wines I’ve had. I got lucky and was able to purchase it already several years old. I am way too impatient usually to age my wines but, given the complexity of this one, it really is worth the wait.  Intensely colored with golden highlights, there was so much happening in the glass. Ripe quince and drippingly sweet white fruits with honeycomb, flowers, and spice; all with the underlying sense of minerality for which Santorini wines are known. Rich and full-bodied with 14.5% ABV, structured acidity, and lingering finish.

Just wow. 

Art Space Assyrtiko-Aidani, 2021

After doing a tasting here, I left with several bottles of their wine. Obviously since this is the second I’m including in this post! One wine was terribly oxidized and I cried a little but the Assyrtiko-Aidani was lovely.

I don’t know the percentage here of Assyrtiko vs Aidani, but it is likely that the Aidani makes up more than 20% of the blend as this wine does not fall under PDO Santorini. This is a PGI Cyclades wine. PGI Cyclades includes all the Cycladic islands in the southern Aegean Sea. Vineyards must be planted at altitudes exceeding 30m. It allows for a wide range of grapes and wine styles. Allowable grapes include: Athiri, Aidani White, Asprouda Santorinis, Assyrtiko, Gaidouria, Katsano, Kritiko, Maloukato, Mandilaria White, Muscat White, Savvatiano, Athiri Black, Aidani Black, Avgoustiatis, Vaftra, Voydomatis, Kotsifali, Mandilaria, Mavrotragano, and Fokiano. Wine types allowed include dry, medium dry, medium sweet, sweet white, red, and rosé wines.

Like the Art Space Santorini, this is made from only free-run juice and fermented on indigenous yeasts. The wine poured a medium gold with aromas of quince and kumquat and toasty-nutty notes. Sipping revealed rich citrus flavors of rangpur lime with linden flowers and quince fruit. Full-bodied with nice acidity, 14.5% ABV, and every so slightly effervescent. 

Gavalas Posta, 2019

Gavalas Winery lays claim to being one of the oldest wineries on the island with the wine currently in the hands of fourth generation George Gavalas and his son (the fifth generation), Vagelis. They cultivate of course Assyrtiko, Athiri, and Aidani (in fact they’re one of the few making a varietal Aidani), as well as Mavrotragano, Mandalaria, and rare varieties like Katasano, Gaidouria, and Voudomato. 

Among the winery’s PGI Cyclades wines is the Gavalas Posta, a blend of 60% Assyrtiko from Santorini and 40% Monemvasia from the island Paros that matures for three months on the lees. I felt the Assyrtiko’s presence in the wine far more strongly than the Monemvasia. The nose was lightly floral, but not nearly as aromatic as I’d have thought with the addition of the second grape. A pleasant wine with green apple, citrus, and white flowers, medium-bodied with 13.5% ABV, refreshing, and easy to drink. 

Gavalas Katsanó, 2019

Another PGI Cyclades wine from Gavalas, this one features two of the rare grapes the winery cultivates: Katsanó and Gaidouria. Two very rare varieties, they cover less than 1% percent of vineyards on Santorini. Gavalas’s vineyards in Megalochori and Akrotiri are home to a small number of vines that are older than 30 years old.

The wine, a blend of 85% Katsanó and 15% Gaidouria fermented and aged entirely in stainless steel and spent four months on the lees before bottling. It poured a deep lemon with green highlights with aromas of honey, lemon, ripe pineapple, and white flowers. The palate gave the same pineapple sensed on the nose but joined by rich ripe loquat and mandarin with a musky floral back breath. Round, slightly creamy and weighty with 13% ABV and medium acidity. 

Just as not all Santorini wines are Assyrtiko, not all are white! But that’s a story for a different post.