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by Richard
Neill
Decanter Magazine
Greece appears to be pulling away from the slow lane:
RICHARD NEILL tours the Hellenic vineyards and finds winemaking
is picking up speed.
Some things never change. Standing in front of the
departure board at Athens airport, there is a familiar scene of
terminal domestic unbliss. The giant flapper-board does its clickety
click ripple leaving a swathe of 'delayeds', 'cancelleds' and 'just
can't be bothereds' next to every island destination, and a sea
of backpacks drifts off to the bar to counter the Olympic timetable
games with a cold beer booster. Classic Greece; so beautiful yet
so frustrating, so oozing with potential yet so blocked by the slow
ooze of inefficiency.
But there are hints that these could be the last days
of the 'old' Greece. Olympic Airlines is on its last legs, new private
companies are springing up to baffle weary locals with smiling staff
and planes that leave on time, and a brand new international terminal
is, unbelievably, ahead of schedule. It is still a country capable
of showing absolute brilliance with one hand and complete stupidity
with the other, but at least there is at last a forward momentum
to the whole crazy package.
The Greek wine industry is almost a microcosm of what
is happening to the country as a whole. Thanks in no small part
to the seal of approval given by Oddbins, we are now at last getting
glimpses of what could have been, had it not been wasting away in
oxidised, gently baked limbo all these years. More important, this
initiative by Britain's most irreverent high street chain has sparked
interest from the rest of the British wine trade. For years, the
Greek stand at the London Wine Trade Fair has competed with the
English Vineyards for lowest number of visits, but this year 'the
Steve Daniel effect' (Daniel being buyer at Oddbins) caused a veritable
flurry of activity.
And as the starting gun has gone off, so it is becoming
patently obvious who the 'serious' premier league players are and
who are most likely to drift back into domestic market obscurity.
Two big names, Archaia Clauss and Chateau Carras, are the first
on the casualty list and, unless changes - in personnel and attitude
- are instigated, I predict some wobbly times elsewhere. Visits
to Boutari and Sons and Chateau Lazaridi - both of which have the
sort of financial resources other wineries can only dream of - revealed
disappointing wines and a worrying lack of direction.
Whatever the excitement over what must surely be Europe's
greatest under-achiever, no one should doubt the level of challenges
ahead. Vassilios Marinos, joint partner in a new wine research company
called Ampelooeniki, certainly has no illusions as to the size of
the task ahead. Having worked for some time at the Australian Wine
Research Institute, Marinos is very aware that while Greece might
be moving forward, the rate of development among its competitors
is still causing the gap to widen further.
'The major problems we are facing are the mentality
of the growers - they don't like to listen to scientists - and the
fact that we know so little about our grape varieties,' says Marinos,
who has been collecting vital data for the last five years. 'We
know almost nothing about Roditis and it is one of the most widely
planted grape varieties in Greece'.
Haroula Spinthiropoulou, a young female viticulturist
and one of the few people doing serious field studies of Greek varieties,
agrees. Of the estimated 200 different 'wine varieties' that are
thought to exist in the country (another 70-odd table grape varieties
can be added to that), she has collected about 50 in the last three
years which are currently propagated in the Vitro-Hellas nursery.
So if you thought what you've been tasting in Oddbins recently was
refreshingly different from the Cab-Chard norm, your tastebuds ain't
seen nothing yet.
Richard Neill's top five wineries:
The day I tasted wine at Yannis Argyros' small Santorini winery,
a constant procession of leather-faced locals arrived to get a weekly
fill-up. One poked his nose around the corner of the room we were
in and on seeing a pale-legged Englishman going week at the knees
over a 1974 Vinsanto, he just shrugged and said 'that's a woman's
drink'. Hopefully, if this island's menfolk remain as non-PC in
their attitude, we Brits might still have a chance of getting some
of this divine elixir. Argyros - who used to commute between decorating
jobs on Athens building sites and his island winery - produces the
sort of wines that make a mockery of his lack of recognition. His
basic white (a blend of Assyrtiko, Athiri and Aidani) is a green-tinged,
tightly structured corker of a wine but it is the mahogany coloured
Vinsanto that lingers in the mind even longer than the splendours
of the Caldera.
Unbeknown to the old men of Koutsi village who pass the time sipping
gritty coffee and twirling worry beads, their local commune is about
to become the centre of a bitter dispute. A local winemaker has
proposed to the government that Koutsi should become a special 'cru'
to help distinguish its 'High Nemea' wines from the lesser quality
'Lower Nemea' wines. With pride and financial reward at stake, a
nasty battle is just around the corner, but the charismatic Yannis
Paraskevopoulos is more concerned about garnering international
recognition for Nemea than what his neighbours think of him. This
ex-Boutari winemaker not only has the sort of energy and vision
that the Greek wine industry desperately needs but he has that Australian-style
'give it a go' ethic that guarantees Gaia wines will always be challenging
and innovative. His lavender-scented, new-wave Retsina completely
confounds stereotypical perceptions of this much-maligned drink.
Evangelos Gerovassiliou could easily sell all his wine in Greece
at higher prices than he gets in the UK but, like a number of wineries,
he has put the common cause ahead of individual rewards. And for
Team Greece, it is absolutely vital that this Bordeaux graduate
- one of Monsieur Peynaud's favourite students - is represented
in the UK. Not only is this the best range of wines in Greece, it
is one of the best range of wines I have tasted this year, period.
I would love to tell you more about the man, but shortly after shaking
his hand, he had to rush off to see his bank manager in Thessalonika
to get a loan for his new visitor's centre and cellar. If you still
have the same opinion of Greek whites after tasting his Sauvignon
Blanc Fumé and barrel-fermented Viognier, then I guess I must be
preaching to the unconvertible.
The parting of the Boutari wine dynasty has left the more visionary
and passionate (in wine terms) of the two running his own single
estate in the hills above the town of Naoussa. Yanni Boutari has
the sort of weary expression of someone on the verge of a deep sleep
(not perhaps surprising given the colourful life this man has led),
but behind those heavy eyelids is an incredibly sharp brain and
an ambition that refuses to wane. His Yannacohori Estate - divided
into 32 sections - is a model of experimentation and forward planning.
Unafraid of the criticism aimed at those using non-indigenous grapes,
Boutari (and his dynamic young winemaker Angelos Iatridis) have
settled on Merlot and Syrah as the best blending components to soften
out the tough edges of Xynomavro.
Arthanassios Parparoussis is a quiet, unassuming man who lets his
stunning range of Peloponnese wines spell out his passion for his
craft. His Roditis 1998 was one of the most intense and lengthy
whites (based on this varietal) I've tried, and his barrel-fermented
blend of Assyrtiko and Athiri is an inspired match. But top marks
go to a Nemea Reserve 1994 that absolutely stormed out of the glass
with Morello cherries, eucalyptus and mint, ending with an almost
Italianate bitter astringency. This relatively unknown boutique
winery will not be unknown for much longer.
Chasing hard for promotion:
The great Constantine Antonopoulos would not only be proud of what
the owner's cousins Yannis and Nikos Halikias (and oenologist Tassos
Drossiadis) have achieved in the years since his tragic death, but
he would also be looking at the modern style wines disappearing
off Oddbins' shelves and saying, 'I told you so'. If I have a quibble
about the Antonopoulos wines it is the tendency to over-oak, but
the new 1998 barrel-fermented Chardonnay shows much better integration
and, with a bit of bottle age, it has the potential to be stunning
white wine. The wine to buy is the green-tinged Adoli Ghis 1998
- a truly idiosyncratic wine with lovely fragrant aromas and knife-edge
refreshing bitterness.
Like his brother Nikos' showy Napa-style winery that faces him a
few miles away, Constantin (Kostas) Lazaridi has spent extravagantly
on aesthetics. There can't be many wineries that can boast a marble
floor in the barrel room. But, unlike the disappointing wines of
Chateau Lazaridi, Kostas - thanks to hiring the talented winemaker
Vassilis Tsatskarlis - is delivering the liquid goods. Watch out
for the 1998 vintage of Chateau Julia Merlot and (as a result of
Mr Daniel's badgering) the excellent 'unfiltered' 1997 vintage of
their premium Cabernet called Amethystos Cava.
Until the late 1980s most of the fruit from this estate close to
Olympia was sold in bulk, but with oenologist George Alexopoulos
at the helm, Domaine Mercouri wines - in particular the excellent
red now imported into the UK by Oddbins - now has something of a
cult following within Greece. They are experimenting with both indigenous
and non-Greek varieties, so expect an eclectic range in the future.
The three ex-engineer owners of Strofilia (responsible for setting
up the first wine bar in Athens) have come a long way from their
initial blind fumblings in the wine world. When they started the
operation in the early 1980s, they used hand presses; temperature
control involved wrapping wet clothes around the tanks and praying
for wind, and they nearly lost the vineyard due to using a German
viticulture manual. But they have persevered, and their openness
to change and new ideas are bringing better quality every year.
So far their whites (particularly the Assyrtiko-based Nafsika label)
impress more than the reds.
Even after only half an hour with the shy, modest Angelos Rouvalis
(he barely spoke a word during our tasting) it was clear I'd met
one the great talents of the Peloponnese. Having worked in a wine
laboratory for many years, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of Greek
wines and growers, and takes his grapes from various north-facing
vineyards of varying altitudes overlooking the Gulf of Corinth.
Best wines: Asprolithi 1998 (made from Roditis) is a piercing, bone-dry
wine, with some lovely smokey touches, and his Cabernet Sauvignon
from young vines shows great promise.
If Mantinia eventually gets the recognition it deserves it will
largely be due to the quiet, determined efforts of Dijon graduate
Yannis Tselepos. Matching New World winery technology with an Old
World belief in vineyard site selection, his wines reflect this
mix and still taste absolutely 100% Greek. His Mantinia (in Oddbins)
is a fragrant gem of a wine that absolutely sings with pure, clean
flavours.
Maths teacher and artisan winemaker Paris Sigalas only survived
the difficult times running an isolated under-funded winery on Santorini
by selling a lot of wine to his friends and relatives. Now (with
exports to New York) he is getting to the stage where even family
might soon have to get in the allocation line. 1999 was his first
vintage in a new winery (the old one was under the house), and providing
Maths doesn't become the most popular subject on the island, we
can expect further jumps in quality.
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