£15.00
per bottle (750 ml)
On the nose refreshing lemony notes are followed by a bouquet of ripe stone fruits ending into tropical notes such as passionfruit. The wine has a lively acidity that balances the weight on the palate. Notes such as pear, nectarine and lemon grass are dominant but leaving space for great minerality. Recommended with salmon and tuna dishes or grilled seafood.
White
Dry
2023
12.5 ABV
Assyrtiko, Malagousia
Peloponnese
Grapes
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.
Malagousia
Malagousia is an aromatic white variety grown primarily in Central Greece and Greek Macedonia. The variety was rescued from near extinction in 1983 by the winemaker Evangelos Gerovassiliou, after he planted out his vineyard at Epanomi, on the Halkidiki peninsula, with the variety. Malagousia is best known for its citrus and peach characteristics, often showing various melon flavours on the palate. It is often used as a blending agent, most notably with Assyrtiko, to which it adds middle body weight.
Producer
Barafakas
Young winemaker Christos Barafakas with a degree in Agriculture returned to his family’s 14-hectare large vineyard in Nemea and established his winery in 2002. He has been one of the few new producers, who expressed the Agiorgitiko variety in fresh styles, without the use of ageing wooden barrels. His vineyard plots have a varying altitude between 280 and 600m above sea level, with plants ranging in age between 5 to 45 years and overall low yields, 6-9 t/ha. Although generally straightforward and practical in his approach, he has created some unique wines, such as “Thousand Years”, a blend of Agiorgitiko and Cabernet Sauvignon, suitable for ageing in the cellar and the boutique Phylacto, sun-dried Assyrtiko in very limited quantities, a “mini-Vinsanto” (with a twist, as aged in acacia barrels) to be found outside Santorini.
