GREEK RED INDIGENOUS GRAPE VARIETIES

GREEK RED INDIGENOUS GRAPE VARIETIES

 

 

 

 

Agiorgitiko: The etymology of the name is the variety which comes from the town of St. George which today is called Nemea. A grape unique to this area and southern Greece's best. As its attributes change with the altitude, the styles and character vary. The young wines have a fruity nose to them and if they are barrel aged a rich bouquet and full body is unveiled.

Kotsifali: The variety is unique to Archanes and Peza. Due to its sweetness and lack of color it is blended with the Mandilaria variety.

Krasato: It is part of the A.O. Rapsani in Thessaly and is an indigenous variety.

Liatiko: This variety was the base for the sweet wine Malvazia. Today it is cultivated in central and eastern Crete and the Cyclades and produces the A.O. Dafnes and Sitia. Its name is probably derived from the Greek word for the month of July, when these grapes ripen.

Limnio: A variety which dates back to ancient Greece and is native to the island of Limnos where it is referred to as Kalambaki. It is also cultivated in Chalkidiki and is the backbone for the A.O. Playies Melitona. It produces a deep color with distinct varietal aromas.

Mandilaria: A fairly common variety on the Aegean islands and Crete. It is part of the A.O. Paros, Archanes, Peza and solely responsible for the A.O. Rhodes, where it is also called Amorgiano.

Mavrodaphne: A unique variety to Achaia and Cephalonia that produces sweet wines which are usually barrel aged for many years.

Messenikola: This variety is grown in the area bearing the same name in Thessaly. The A.O. Messenikola was established in 1994.

Negoska: It is the lesser part of the A.O. Goumenissa, and lowers Xynomavro's acidity and tannins when vinified together.
Stavroto: It is the third variety of A.O. Rapsani and is also called ambelakiotiko.

Sykiotis: It comprises about 10% of Anhialos wine grape cultivations and produces a dry wine.

Xinomavro: As with Agiorgitiko, this variety is considered Greece's best. It produces A.O. Naoussa and Amindeo and is the backbone to A.O. Goumenissa and Rapsani. Barrel aging improves its quality and the wines are of high acidity, bright color and rich aromas.

 

Other red varieties grown in Greece and the rest of the world are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Grenache Rouge, Refosco, Merlot, Sangiovese and Syrah. Cabernet Sauvignon is probably the wine with the most distinct varietal aroma and deserves oak barrels to age in. The Grenache variety has a high alcohol potential. Refosco can be found in the western Peloponnese and has a ruby color.

 

taken from www.greekwine.gr

GREEK WHITE INDIGENOUS GRAPE VARIETIES

Greek White Indigenous  Grape Varieties

 

 

 

Aidani: It can found on Santorini and other Aegean islands. Flowery bouquet.

Assyrtiko: This variety, one of Greece's best, is found on the
Aegean islands, especially  on Santorini. It covers about 65% of this volcanic island's plantings and is the base for the production of the Appellation of Origin (A.O.) Santorini. Its high acidity is sometimes ameliorated with the addition of Savatiano. The wines have a fruity taste and come in many styles.

Athiri: It is grown mainly in the Aegean but has presence in northern Greece and the Peloponnese. A.O. Rhodes is produced by this grape and is usually blended with Assyrtiko.

Debina: An indigenous variety found in Zitsa, Epirus which produces dry and sparkling wines (A.O. Zitsa). The area's high altitude gives a distinct freshness and fruity aromas to the wines.

Kakotrigis: A variety unique to southern Corfu.

Lagorthi: A highly promising variety located in the northwestern Peloponnese which unfortunately is not widely planted.

Malvazia: This variety is found today on the island of Paros in small quantities. If one traces its history, it can be found during the middle ages as a sweet wine, largely exported from Crete. The name comes from the Venetians who transformed the name of Monemvasia, a coastal town on the eastern Peloponnese, to Malvazia.

Moschofilero: It produces "Blanc de Gris" wines as the grape has
a pinkish color. The German counterpart is Gerwutztraminer. This fine variety grows at high altitudes (600m) in central Peloponnese. The A.O. Mantinia has a distinct fruity bouquet with high acidity.

Muscat: There is a varietal aroma in these wines which are produced in a range of styles from dry to dessert wines. It is grown on Cephalonia, Rhodes, Samos and in Patra and it gives these areas one of their A.O. wines.

Robola: A variety with a rich aroma which is found mainly on the island of Cephalonia and is expensive to buy.

Roditis: This variety can be found in most of the Greek wine regions and its grape skin is either white or light red. It produces the Patra and Anhialos A.O.. Roditis' quality increases with the altitude of the region it is grown at.

Savatiano: Due to its light taste it has been used mainly in the production of Retsina. However, there has been a dramatic change in this wine's character due to advances in technology and techniques. It is the commonest variety to be found in Attica and Euboea and amounts to about 15% of Greece's wine grapes.

Sideritis: A variety found in the northern Peloponnese close to Patra.

Tsaoussi: This grape is grown on the island of Cephalonia and is blended with the Robola variety.

Vertzami: A low profile variety found mainly on Lefkada.

Vidiano: The best results are when this Cretan variety is grown at high altitudes.

Vilana: This is central and eastern Crete's main white variety and fully comprises the A.O. Peza. One can usually detect floral tones in these wines.

 

Other white grape varieties grown in Greece which are widely cultivated around the world are: Chardonnay, Semillion, Grenache Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Ugni Blanc. Chardonnay is probably the most popular with plantings all over Greece. As it is a variety that is best married with oak, it is usually aged in oak barrels and sometimes fermented in them.

 

taken from www.greekwine.gr

 

GREEK EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL - GIFT FROM THE GODS

 

 

Greek Olive Oil - Gift from the Gods 

 

Today and Tomorrow
Though Greece is a relatively small country of only 10 million people, they are the world’s third largest producer of olive oil (behind Italy and Spain) and Greeks are by far the largest consumers of olive oil in the world. The average olive oil consumption of every single Greek man, woman and child is over 26 liters per person annually and even more than that on the island of Crete, which also boasts one of the world’s highest average life
 expectancies. This is compared to less than a liter per person annual average consumption in North America.

In Greece today, olive oil production accounts for approximately 10% of the total agricultural production. Greek growers tend some 14 million olive trees – 1.4 olive trees per person though in this rocky and rugged land the cultivation of the olive is often not that different from the methods used in ancient times.

The olive and its oil are not only ubiquitous in Greece, but a vital part of the regular diet. Along with being the world’s leading per capita consumers of olive oil and the world’s third largest producers, they happen to lead the world in percentage of output that is coveted extra virgin olive oil: approximately 80% of the olive oil produced in Greece is extra virgin, compared with approximately 50% of Italian and Spanish oils. Perhaps it is no surprise that many chefs and culinary experts consider Greek olive oil to be among the best in the world. Indeed, though Greece is the world’s largest producer and exporter of extra virgin olive oil, this leads to what might very well be the ‘Achilles heel’ of the Greek olive oil industry: they still sell the vast majority of their olive oil in bulk to Italy to be blended with local oil and labeled and sold as ‘Italian’ olive oil for international export. To some Greeks it is a situation that positively drips with the pathos and tragedy of ancient Athenian playwrights.

Given the tremendous global growth in the olive oil industry and the new-found fascination with culinary excellence, many Greek olive oil producers today are looking to expand their market share and become more competitive internationally. The ironic fact may be that the very same qualities that sometimes slowed down Greek olive oil marketing in the past may represent their best hopes for the future. Now that EVOO is actually in the dictionary and poised on the lips of epicures the worlds over, Greece may well be finding a way to take advantage of what have sometimes seemed drawbacks; isolation, classic techniques and small, individual growers. As long as the world’s thirst for the elixir that is EVOO continues to grow, the country that produces so much of it may be poised for a new era.

Because Greece is mountainous and rugged and many of its olive groves are in small, inaccessible orchards, cultivation does not lend itself to mass production nor to machine picking. This very fact may be a saving grace for the upper-tier olive oil market. Small olive groves in inaccessible areas are by necessity hand-picked and often freshly pressed on the same soil where they’re grown. Greeks may today be learning to exploit this asset and move beyond the more humble business of bulk export. More Greek producers are going organic and learning to focus on single-estate bottled olive oils, often pressing and bottling right on the premises. Now if they learn to market better and exploit the growing international thirst for top-quality single-estate extra virgin olive oils, Greeks hope that their olive oil may secure a place in this growing niche.

Greek producers are beginning to see the value in marketing single-estate oil produced on a small-scale by traditional methods that have been used here for millennia, handpicked, stone-ground and cold-pressed. It is largely because of this new realization that Greece has recently had Europe’s most dramatic increases in organic farming. In the past decade, the production of organic olive oil has more than tripled in Greece and biological olive oils and controlled origin production in Greece are experiencing an astonishing 30% annual growth.

Austrian olive oil guru Fritz Blauel has been a pioneer in this field. Arriving in Greece in the 1970’s as somewhat of an environmentalist, Fritz saw what many have noted before in Greece, that many Greek olive growers have always been producing with traditional methods in an almost naturally organic fashion. Living in the Mani on the Peloponnese, home to the famed Kalamata PDO (EU Protected Designation of Origin), Blauel was well-positioned to enhance and even improve on this tradition. Blauel appreciated the traditional natural methods and saw that with the help of agronomists and proper expertise, the area could exploit this potential and become truly organic. He has done so quite successfully, with tremendous results. Starting in the early 1980’s, his Mani Organic Extra-Virgin Olive Oil and Kalamata Gold have become successful exports. His organic olive oil is also sold and available in Whole Foods in the U.S. under their North American brand name of Lapas.

“We saw all this good quality Greek olive oil being sent to Italy so we started off filling individual bottles with selected oil by hand,” says Blauel, “now more than 500 area farms have been converted to organic farming and we’re pleased to have been able to help show them the way.” Like many olive oil producers, it seems almost a religious passion for Blauel and from his early hand-bottling and labeling, they’re now up to 650 tons annual production and still growing.

His oil not only has the fruitiness and fine peppery finish that the region is known for, it’s also all certified organic.

“We can learn something about marketing olive oil from the Italians — and we can keep producing a top-quality product and carve out our own niche,” says Blauel, “this ethos is not only environmentally friendly but we’re able to set an example and show that it can also be profitable.”
 

 

PIGS & PINOT ( Pinot loves Pigs)

"Pinot Noir loves pork"...this is undoubtedly one of the best matches of this great  variery which is associated with Burgundy, even if it is widely cultivated around the world, including Greece.   We have selected two greek pinos - one from the north & one from the south of Greece-  to present a traditional greek recipe - Pork with prunes & chesnuts  (Hirino me damaskina kai kastana) - to welcome the new season.     INGREDIENTS 1 kg boneless pork, cut in pieces 20 prunes 20 chesnuts 1 glass of mavrodaphne wine (the famous greek sweet red wine from the region of Patras) or any other sweet wine will be appropriate 1 glass of red wine 1 cup of strong european tea Extra virgin Olive Oil 1 glass of water Salt Pepper

HOW TO PREPARE IT Mix in a bowl the sweet wine, the prunes, the chesnuts and the tea. Leave it overnight on the fridge. Heat oil in a large saucepan and saute pork pieces until brown. Add the glass of red wine and one glass of water and let it simmer for more than 2 hours until meat is tender. Then add the mix and bring again to a boil. Let the pork absorb most of the juice and be sure that is tender enough before you remove from heat. Serve with rice.     Choose your favorite Greek Pinot and let the feast begin !     PINOT NOIR by Alpha Estate in Amyndeon, Macedonia PINOT NOIR by Papaioannou Estate in Nemea, Peloponnese

25 YEARS CHATEAU NICO LAZARIDI

Nico Lazaridi Group -  one of the greatest wine producers of Greece -  is celebrating its 25th Anniversary with a series of events  &  the production of special labels for its wine enthousiasts around the globe.

Stay tuned !!

 

NICO LAZARIDI WIAC SA

Municipal District of Agora

PO Box 101, 66100 Drama - Greece

Tel. +30 25210 82049 - 51

Fax. +30 25210 82 047

www.nicolazaridi.gr

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