A couple of weeks ago there were two massive professional wine tastings in London, a generic one of Greek wines and one of New Zealand wines chosen by a couple of Masters of Wine.
What was notable was the marked contrast in the parts played by rosé, a wine category that has become so much more significant. (Thank you, Whispering Angel.) About 10% of all wine sold in recent years has been pink (in France that proportion is more than 30% thanks to the decline in red wine consumption there), while in 2000 only 7% of all wine was pink.
Of the 112 ‘New Zealand Wines of the Year’ shown by Susie Barrie and Peter Richards of the popular podcast Wine Blast, all of 33 were red but only one was pink, and a decidedly commercial and rather lacklustre one at that. It was explained to me by a UK importer at the NZ tasting that the timing of the southern-hemisphere harvest in February and March means that rosés tend to be available only from around September, which the northern-hemisphere retailers, who constitute the world’s major wine importers, view as an unsuitable time to add to their range of pink wines.
On the other hand, of the 183 Greek wines shown, 22 were rosés. In the introduction to her classic book Rosé, Master of Wine and pink-wine specialist Elizabeth Gabay makes a clear distinction between serious rosés and the great bulk of ‘commercially successful, pale pink, easy drinking’ examples. Virtually all of the Greek examples qualified as serious wines that could be drunk as aperitifs but would probably be even more at home with food – and not just a spinach and feta spanakopita or stuffed vine leaf.
Of my favourite Greek rosés, most were based on the Nebbiolo-like Xinomavro grape variety and were young wines from the most recent, 2025 vintage. But they all tasted as though they would still be going strong next summer (unlike many commercial French rosés). There was also a hugely distinctive serious pink retsina from Kechris based on 2024, and even a 2023 from Venetsanos of Santorini that I thought still had a lot of life left in it.
Those who have yet to be aware of the Greek wine revolution – initiated by a dramatic increase in training and expertise in a new generation of producers and encouraged by the country’s unusually rich heritage of indigenous grape varieties – may well think of Greece as likely to produce mainly red wines but, as Julia reported in Greek early-summer releases – white, sparkling and sweet, only one-third of wine grapes grown in Greece are dark-skinned. White wines predominate.
Over the years I’ve written at length (as nauseam perhaps?) about my admiration for the pale-skinned likes of Assyrtiko, so at the recent tasting I decided to focus on pink and red wines and was delighted with the freshness and variety I encountered. I didn’t taste the wines of Alpha Estate and Rouvalis because my colleague and Greek wine fan Julia Harding had already done so but I tasted all the wines shown by the other 30-plus producers. I found 15 seriously interesting red wines, many with relatively modest alcohol levels, something else that may come as a surprise to newcomers to Greek wine.
Apparently, in the early days, organisers of tastings like this tried to outlaw international grape varieties but nowadays, as Sofia Perpera of The Greek Wine Federation explained, ‘We don’t have to discourage the wineries any more in relation to non-Greek grapes. They know that they have to focus on indigenous grapes for export markets. This is our strong card. Everyone can find a Cabernet from anywhere in the world, and possibly less expensive too since our production is so little.’ Greece’s wine production is just 2% of Europe’s and well under 1% of the world’s. Most producers are small family outfits but they are based in a hugely varied range of terrains, both on the mainland and on a multiplicity of islands, many of which have their own grape specialities. Outsiders probably don’t realise, for instance, that much of Greece is snow-covered until well into April.
Among my favourite reds were just two from the islands, but both from exotically characterful grape varieties. There was a Seiradi 2025 Mandilaria from the Paros Farming Community (nice name, no?) that was only 12.4% alcohol and just needed its powerful acidity and tannin to settle down a bit. The 2024 would make a joyful summer red at any temperature. Mandilaria’s freshness and structure was also evident in a Cretan blend with the softer local Kotsifali grape in a 2024 made by Idaia.
Agiorgitiko is Greece’s most-planted red wine grape so it was no surprise to find that five of my six favourite reds from the Peloponnese were based on this versatile variety – although both Semeli Estate’s Oreinos Helios Red 2023 and Novus Winery’s Altitude Red 2024 included portions of Syrah, and Syrah and Merlot respectively. More youthful but more ambitious is Novus, Cultura 2022 Nemea that is pure varietal Agiorgitiko.
I was impressed by both 2023 Nemea bottlings shown by Palivou Estate – although at 15% they were the two most alcoholic wines in the tasting. I hope this wasn’t a factor in my enthusiasm. The regular version is given eight months in new French oak and the fruit is grown at 150 m (492 ft) whereas the more sophisticated Ammos Terra Leona Reserve bottling comes from vines at 300–400 m (984–1,312 ft) and was aged 16 months in new French oak and then eight months in the ‘amphorae’ that may be Greek-inspired but are becoming increasingly popular all over the wine world. Antonopoulos’s dry but velvety Morfeas 2022 from Achaia was based on the Mavrodaphne grape variety that is more usually associated with sweet, strong wines.
Perhaps not surprisingly, most of my favourite northern Greek reds were based on a favourite grape variety of mine, Xinomavro, three of them from the vine’s homeland, Naoussa. Nico Lazaridi’s Lion d’Or 2023 is not the most complex Xinomavro but would serve as an excellent introduction to the variety. Foundi Estate produced two of the best wines in the entire tasting (and a stunning rosé): the beautifully energetic 2021 Foundi Estate bottling and the more serious 2019 Naoussea, the oldest wine there. Kechris’s 2021 Xinomavro is not nearly ready but should be imported by The Jolly Wine Merchants before too long.
Rapsani, grown on the slopes of Mount Olympus, is a blend of Xinomavro with the local Krassato and Stavroto. Noema’s 2024 was racily transparent and refreshing with a savoury finish. Not what someone with a 20-year-old memory of Greek reds would expect at all.
The exception to this Xinomavro monopoly was Wine Art Estate’s Anafora 2021 from Drama, based on the resurrected Limniona, another quintessentially Greek grape variety well worth watching.
Unfortunately, although pricing is relatively friendly, too few of the wines shown are currently available in the UK, which is only Greek wine’s fifth-most important export market after Germany, then the US (which imports much smarter wines than Germany), Canada and Cyprus. But so popular have Greek wines become in Sweden and Norway that the London generic tasting was followed immediately by versions in Stockholm and Oslo.
Rosés
Novus, Altitude Agiorgitiko blend Rosé 2025 PGI Peloponnese 12.9%
2022 is £15.70 Field & Fawcett
Kir-Yianni, Rosé Xinomavro 2025 PGI Macedonia 13.5%
£16.99 Finchley Wine, £17.49 Cambridge Wine Merchants
Boutari, Dianthos Rosé Xinomavro 2025 PGI Imathia 12.8%
2024 is £24.93 Epinoia
Theopetra Estate, Rosé Xinomavro 2025 PGI Meteora 12%
2024 is £32.39 Great Wines Direct
Reds
Novus Winery, Altitude Agiorgitiko blend 2024 PGI Peleponnese 13.3%
2022 is £17.50 Shrine to the Vine
Paros Farming Community, Seiradi Mandilaria 2025 PGI Cyclades 12.4%
2024 is £18 Woodwinters
Semeli Estate, Oreinos Helios Agiorgitiko blend 2023 PGI Peloponnese 13.5%
£21.15 Epinoia
Palivou Estate Agiorgitiko 2023 Nemea 15%
£23.43 Epinoia
Palivou Estate, Ammos Terra Leone Agiorgitiko 2023 Nemea 15%
2022 is £24.99 James Nicholson, £28 Highbury Vintners, £29.98 Epinoia
Foundi, Naoussea Xinomavro 2019 Naoussa 13%
£29.30 Clark Foyster
Foundi, Estate Xinomavro 2021 Naoussa 13.5%
£37.84 Clark Foyster
For tasting notes, scores and suggested drinking dates, see our tasting notes database. For international stockists, see Wine-Searcher.com.
Back to basics
Greek red wine grapes |
| In declining order of area planted, these are the main grapes. Agiorgitiko (‘St George’) is the signature variety of Nemea, the Peloponnese wine region closest to Athens, and makes a wide range of wine styles. Liatiko is the main grape of the island of Crete and makes extremely friendly, relatively soft, light, ruby-coloured wines. Much more tannic but also pale with a tendency to rust-colour with age, Xinomavro is characteristic of Naoussa in north-central Greece. It can make great rosés as well as reds. A number of Greek grapes are called Mavroudi, some of which may be identical to Bulgaria’s Mavrud. Kotsifali is another Cretan variety; it makes such potent, soft wines that the variety is often blended with the lighter, more tannic Mandilaria. Romeiko is yet another variety associated with Crete, where it is very common in the west of the island. It has the unusual property of displaying grapes that are green, pink and black on a single bunch. According to official statistics, there were more than 1,000 ha (2,470 acres) of Fokiano by 2024. |
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