Hatzidakis Vinsanto Sweet 2003, 500ml
£84.00
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Hatzidakis Vinsanto Sweet 2003, 500ml
£84.00
Description
Deep amber colour with caramel highlights, intense aromas of dried fruits such as raisins, honey and butter caramel with a mineral character. Full and velvety in the mouth with a sweetness that balances the refreshing acidity. Long aftertaste of sugary orange peels.
At a glance
Grape
Assyrtiko
Region
Aegean Islands
Vintage
2003
ABV
12.6%
Sweetness
Sweet
Organic
Grape
Assyrtiko
Assyrtiko is by far Greece’s most renowned white grape variety, associated most famously with the volcanic island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea. Following its notable success, it is now grown successfully all over Greece and beyond in Clare Valley, Australia, South Africa and California, being the first Greek grape to become international. It has developed a reputation as being a versatile grape variety, producing wines in a multitude of styles, from fresh, mineral white wines to oaked, worth keeping ones and from bold complex reds to rıch matured dessert wines, such as Vinsanto. Compact clusters of large, moderately thick-skinned berries, late budding and late ripening. Vigorous and productive, resistant to drought, disease and wind and capable of maintaining high acidity up to the final stages of the ripening period. In Santorini it is trained in the characteristic baskets, sitting close to the ground and named “kouloures” by the locals.
Producer
Hatzidakis Winery was founded in 1997 in Pyrgos Kallistis, Santorini, by Haridimos Hatzidakis and his wife Konstantina Chryssou, who met while both working at another Santorini producer. The vineyard belonged to Konstantina's family and had lain abandoned since the 1956 earthquake; the couple replanted it and built their first winery in a small cave, or 'kanava', on the site. It became the first certified organic vineyard on Santorini, and every parcel the estate has since bought or leased has been farmed the same way. Haridimos, widely regarded as one of the island's most important winemakers, pioneered single-vineyard Assyrtiko on Santorini and, working with Paris Sigalas, made some of the first modern red wines from the rare Mavrotragano grape. Since his death in 2017, the winery has been run by Konstantina and their children.