Grape

Avgoustiatis

Avgoustiatis is a little known red grape variety found originally around the Ionian islands (more notably on Zakynthos) and the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula, from where it has made its way to a further two Aegean islands about 15 years ago. Following this purposeful and creative migration of the grape, we now have distinguished bottlings coming from these two most recent plantings on the islands of Tinos and Samos. The variety ripens relatively early in the growing season and harvested typically in August, where the name of the grape comes from the grape of August.

Producer

Vakakis

Nikos Vakakis has been one of the most important and largest viticulturists on the island of Samos with 3 hectares of the privately-owned vineyard and another 3 hectares belonging to the extended family. He owns some of the oldest vine plots in the entire Aegean region with autochthonous pre-phylloxera plants of Muscat a Petits Grains reaching the age of centenarians, whilst the altitude of the plots, ranging between 250 to 1050m above sea levels and the very low yields of 5t/ha are unique and impressive. His youngest vineyard is planted with the red variety Avgoustiatis, brought from the Western Peloponnese, and is now 15 years old. Viticulture on the island of Samos is very much traditional, with the vines growing in “masies” or terraces, very much in Oporto’s style and manual harvest together with the employment of mules for the transportation of the harvested fruit is the rule here.