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By Elin McCoy
for Bloomberg , 8 May 2006
May 8 (Bloomberg) - In Greece's Amyndeon, a remote, mountainous wine district about 25 miles from the Albanian border, 39-year-old winemaker Angelos Iatridis proudly pours his deep, rich 2004 Alpha Estate Red in my glass.
The blend of syrah, merlot and native grape xino-mavro is dark and brooding, powerful and luxuriously velvety, spicy and complex, completely individual - and one of my biggest surprises during a recent visit to vineyards in the Macedonia region of northern Greece.
Who knew Greek wines could be this good? Alpha Estate's several stunning bottlings are evidence that this old-world country is undergoing a wine revolution.
Grapes have been grown in Greece for millennia, and the country's wines were lauded more than 2,500 years ago by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Still, it's only been in the past 15 years - after 1,000 or so in the viticultural doldrums - that Greece has begun to emerge as a modern-world player.
The buzz is thanks to a growing band of passionate vintners like Iatridis. They've founded boutique wineries, planted international grapes and rediscovered the virtues of Greece's indigenous varieties.
The renaissance started back in the 1960s in Macedonia, where hillsides are so full of rocks, they seem to sprout from the soil like some ubiquitous plant. Shipping magnate John Carras carved out Domaine Porto Carras and Porto Carras Grand Resort, a grand-scale venture of vineyards, a resort and a casino on a finger of land south of the region's main city, Thessaloniki.
Bumping along a dirt track in Porto Carras's steeply terraced vineyards high above the Mediterranean, I hear from Nicos Savvides, the estate's viticultural director, how Carras enlisted the late famed oenologist Emile Peynaud to help produce Bordeaux blends that were among the first wines to shift the then negative image of Greek wine away from retsina, the traditional white to which pine resin is added. (It's definitely an acquired taste.)
The estate, which fell into financial difficulties after Carras's death in 1986, is being revived. "The 1980s and early '90s were a fantastic learning curve for Greek wine," Constantinos Lazarakis, a wine consultant, tells me later. "Bordeaux-trained Greek winemakers had an incredible impact. The mode of thinking changed."
Greece now has 20 high-quality appellations in three major areas: Macedonia, the Peloponnese peninsula to the south and the islands.
The country's 500-plus wineries include a growing number of tiny estates with lofty ambitions. Many are bottling international varieties to win entry into foreign markets. So far, I'd say syrah seems to have the most potential as a stand- alone grape. More interesting is the use of international grapes in blends, to tame the strong personalities of native varieties. There are about 300 of those, but only 15 are used in modern winemaking.
With a few exceptions, I much prefer the wines from native grapes over international-styled look-alikes.
Bordeaux-trained Evangelos Gerovassiliou, who spent years as winemaker at Domaine Carras while also running his eponymous family estate, was an early champion. "I went looking for them in abandoned vineyards," he recalls. "When I asked a very old woman in one tiny village what a particular grape was, she didn't even know and replied, "It's black like a priest's robe, so we call it pappas."
Gerovassiliou was the first to isolate the delicious, zesty, aromatic white grape malagousia (pronounced ma-la-goo-ZEE-ah), which has the apricotlike character of viognier. He's now experimenting with about a dozen more Greek grapes.
Another easy-drinking white is light and delicate moscofilero (mos-ko-FEE-le-ro); with a floral aroma and the flavor of peaches, it makes a fine aperitif.
But the star white is assyrtiko (as-SIR-tee-ko), which is primarily found in the spare, whitewashed Cycladic islands, especially romantic tourist haven Santorini. There, the assyrtiko grape makes wines with a knifelike acidity and a powerful, smoky- savory mineral flavor that seems to bring the soul of the island's volcanic rocks into the glass.
Two red grapes are serious and striking. Aghiorghitiko (ah-your-RE-tee-ko), the grape of the appellation Nemea in the Peloponnese, produces fresh, juicy wines and full-bodied, age- worthy ones with plum and red-berry flavors and the soft texture of fine merlot. The even more distinctive xinomavro (ksee-no-MAV-ro), the single variety in wines named for the region of Naoussa, dominates in northern Greece.
"Xinomavro is Greece's nebbiolo," says Nico Manessis, author of "The Illustrated Greek Wine Book" (Olive Press, 2000). It, too, has high acidity, heavy tannin and a spice and herb fragrance, and, like wines from Barolo, it ages well for 20 or even 30 years.
Boutari, one of the country's largest wineries, bottled the first xinomavro in Naoussa almost a century ago. As we share the 1987 Grande Reserve, oenologist Dmitrios Gouravas tells me, "Without time, this grape is nothing."
In Boutari's tasting room, you can buy a 1974 for 50 euros ($60). The giant company has established seven boutique wineries in other regions. The mastermind behind that step, winemaker Yannis Boutaris, split from his family's winery 10 years ago to concentrate on his Kir-Yanni estate nearby.
Like Iatridis, he's experimenting to produce what he calls "the new generation of xinomavro,"which means harvesting later; using new techniques to get more concentration, color and elegance; and even blending with merlot.
"For me, Greek whites are still better than the reds," says Steve Daniel, former wine buyer for the Oddbins chain, who introduced Greek wines to the U.K. in 1988. "Only a few reds have soul."
Over lunch at a traditional taverna near Alpha Estate, Iatridis says the human element is as important as the vineyard and winemaking techniques in making great wine. With more and more passionate winemakers like Boutaris and Iatridis, Greece's future looks full of wines with soul.
Here are 12 Greek wines to try in June:
Alpha Estate
Alpha Estate Red ($34): A rich, elegant, spicy blend of syrah, merlot and xinomavro. 2004 Xinomavro ($26): Leather and spice aroma, savory taste and very long finish. 2003 Alpha One (available June 1, $75): A tannat-montepulciano blend with deep earth and plum flavors.
Biblia Chora
2005 White ($12): A food-friendly, tart sauvignon blanc assyrtiko blend from organically grown grapes.
Boutari
2005 Moschofilero Mantinia ($10): Light, crisp, zingy; an easy- drinking aperitif. 2004 Naoussa ($12): Spicy flavors, with hints of cedar, olive and sun-dried tomato.
Domaine Gerovassiliou
2004 Malagousia ($16): Rich, mouth-filling texture; fruity aroma and flavor.
Domaine Sigalas
2004 Santorini Oia ($17): Intense and minerally; from organically grown grapes.
Gaia Estate
2004 Thalassitis Santorini ($20): A full-bodied, flinty white. 2003 Gaia Estate Nemea ($37): A flavorful, velvety, concentrated aghiorghitiko.
Kir-Yanni Estate
2000 Ramnista ($20): A spicy, leathery, traditional xinomavro. 2003 Yianakohori ($28): A succulent, fleshy merlot-xinomavro blend.
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