Anatolikos Red Natural 2016
£35.00
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Anatolikos Red Natural 2016
£35.00
Description
Natural Red 2017 of the Anatolikos Vineyards is the wine that definitely stole the show at the Fine Red Wines Show this weekend. If you were there you know. In its first appearance, Nikolaidis’ natural red wine was the one that made big names blush. Mavroudi of Thrace (60%) and Limnio (40%) are organically cultivated in the absolutely dry privately owned vineyard on the sandy hills with the granite soil of the Hirodassos area in Avdira, Xanthi. The bottles are very few, a little more than 1.000, as the winemaking method used has a great waist.
At a glance
Grape
Mavroudi
Region
Northern Greece
Vintage
2016
ABV
14.6%
Sweetness
Dry
Body
Full Bodied
Organic
Grape
Mavroudi
Mavroudi is a dark-skinned grape variety possibly originating from the West Thracian Valley. The low-yielding, late-ripening vine produces small, almost black fruit with thick skins. The grape’s name is derived from the Greek word “mavro”, meaning black, which is appropriate, as the wines it produces usually are of a dense almost black colour. They also have pronounced tannins big body and high acidity, with an abundance of stewed-fruit flavours on the palate, which create a glycerol mouth-feel. There is a certain botanical note, providing a medicinal finish reminiscent of herbs and barks. May one say that this grape has a lot from the character of Cabernet Sauvignon with a Greek twist.
Producer
Anatolikos is the project of brothers Sakis and Marios Nikolaidis, who fell into winemaking almost by accident: after their fine-dining restaurant near Xanthi, in the far north-east of Greece, didn't survive the 2009 financial crisis, they turned the building itself into a winery, continuing experiments they'd already begun in 2005. Their 7-hectare vineyard lies in Avdira, in Thrace — a historic wine region whose vines were largely wiped out by phylloxera — right by the Aegean and cooled by a constant sea breeze; the name Anatolikos means 'eastern'. Farming is organic and low-intervention throughout, with vines deliberately planted on dry, marginal land and trained unusually high. The brothers are best known for reviving Mavroudi, a near-forgotten Thracian red grape said in legend to be the wine Odysseus used to get the Cyclops Polyphemus drunk, and for producing one of Greece's first amphora-aged natural orange wines.