Peloponnese | Greek Wine World

2010
Agiorgitiko The Wise Owl

This joint venture underlines the open-minded attitude of Nemea-based I Sofia tis Fisis (Nature’s Wisdom) and the forward thinking of the Katogi-Strofilia wineries. It all started after a casual roadside meeting between Nikos Bouzinelos and veteran Achilleas Lampsidis. As Sofia tis Fisis make Greek varietal and herb-infused vinegar, petimezi (grape syrup), and other grape-based products, they are not geared to make wine per se.

A healthy dose of skepticism enters my mind every time I read “organically farmed grapes” on a label. “Who is your neighbor”, is the first of many questions any wine writer worth his salt should ask. So after tasting this news-worthy effort, off I went to see where The Wise Owl grapes originate. Beyond a pretty bucolic setting of olive groves interrupted by nature’s exclamation marks, cypress trees, this Paleochori single vineyard on the north-eastern flank of Koutsi is in good company: conifers. With a growing demand from the US market and Europe for natural wines, both principals jumped to the opportunity and joined their talents. Petros Keknopoulos, oenologist at the Katogi-Strofilia winery in Nemea’s Asprokambos, was the perfect man to take up this challenge. His principals had the good sense to send him off for a year to become a post graduate student at the Australian Wine Research Institute, in Adelaide. “No-sulphite wine is the most difficult to control. Luckily, harvest had not yet begun. There is quite a lot of preparation; one needs to sterilize all the kit. It is a demanding but fun project.”

So all you switched-on readers are by now wondering why the back label still states: “10 parts per million of sulphur”. The answer is that the fermentation process naturally creates tiny quantities of sulphur. Interestingly, white wine produces higher amounts than red. Another tip: Just after harvest, I got to taste the 2011 Wise Owl. It is fruitier. No lover of Nemea should give this wine a miss. It is a new to all of us facet of this charmer of a grape. Yet again, as this novel approach clearly demonstrates, we really know very little about its dynamics.

Very dark for this grape, as no-added-sulphite wines usually are. Bright floral notes with black pepper. Textbook Agiorgitiko core of cherries on the mid-palate. Ripe tannins, spice following through on the rich, tasty finish. Vibrant and pure. Such a sense of place that not all of Koutsi (500m) is capable of. Stylistically, a modern take of Nemea, which I first encountered in 1993. Serve it at cellar temperature in large glassware. For immediate enjoyment. Best 2011-2013.

Score: 16 / 20

For more information please visit www.sofiatisfisis.gr and www.katogi-strofilia.gr

9.11.2011

2006
Nemea Mitravelas Estate

This centenarian negociant, vineyard owner and, more recently, bottler is one of Nemea’s top addresses. There are no secrets to their success. Intimate knowledge of the valley-floor best-draining name places. Equally at home with which hillside performs best in a given vintage. Their long-established contacts with some of the best farmers add to a considerable deck of cards. Managing all this is Kostas Mitravelas, a straight-talking and low-key member of Nemea’s younger generation of historic wine families. The oenologist Gregory Vrettos, whose dark handsome good looks would not be out of place in an Armani advertisement, is another asset to this going places estate. Behind his boyish charm lies one of the better talents to graduate from the Athens University. This busy 26-year-old also manages to find time to run a full-time agricultural laboratory in his home town of Thiva. Vrettos also handles the estate’s exports and travels extensively to open new markets. The year 2006 was a pretty vintage in Nemea. Most of the old-vine Aghiorghitiko was safely picked before the last 20% of the harvest was hit by heavy rains.
Medium dark. Blue rim. Broadly fruited. Black cherries. Round palate with melt-in-mouth suave tannins. Succulent supple finish. Still more to come. Could not be more appellation-true. If you are new to the elegant charms of Nemea, this is one of the best introductions to old-vine (+35-year-old bush vines) examples now on the scene. Best 2010-2015.

Score: 17.5/20

See review of another wine by this Estate: Kokkino se Mavro

For more details, please visit: www.mitravelas.com
Greece distributor: www.cavahalari.gr
UK: www.bibendum-wine.co.uk

10.03.2010

2009
Malagousia Antonopoulos Vineyards

malagou09 Anything with the word Malagousia on the label seems much in demand. Apparently, exports are up in the U.S., and interest is growing in Northern Europe. Despite new plantings, so far, demand far outstrips supply. Are all Malagousias that worthy? The short answer is no. With the sudden weather changes of the more recent vintages, I find this ultrafashionable grape has an increasingly less uniform quality about it. The worst – oily and blowsy– manage caricature expressions of this fragrant dry, ideal as an aperitif, wine. The chief suspect: vineyard management. There is a strong quality correlation between addresses who are pro-active in the vineyard and ones who still hang on to a bygone happy-go-lucky route. Let’s face it: The last exceptional across the board white wine vintage was back in 2005. With the climate change, now even white wine farming is more demanding. To paraphrase a real-estate term, the new mantra is irrigation, irrigation, irrigation. More precisely: measured stress, irrigation, measured stress, irrigation, and so on.
The longstanding oenologist and guiding light at Antonopoulos, Michalis Probonas, has always paid attention to nature. Like other stellar colleagues, he spends most of his time amongst the vines. In the Antonopoulos vineyards there is a new factor in the equation: The more recent Demestika 900-m.-high vineyard has been bearing exceptionally balanced fruit. It was first shown to me (the picture on the home page of their website) as a bare knoll in the mid-1990s. It has now grown up, and the breezy qualities in terms of natural freshness end up in several of this pioneering boutique’s innovative and clever blends.
2009 was a difficult vintage. Exceptions are emerging in several delicate and insistent white wines. Yellow, lime tints. Light carbonic gas prickle. Attractive ripe grassy notes. Pit stone (peach) aroma. Crunchy apple- and white pepper-textured mid-palate. Tension and a bone-dry, elegant, mineral finish. Polished. At 12.2% ABV, a strong candidate to welcome spring with al fresco sipping. Best 2010-12.

Score: 16.5/20

For more details please visit: www.antonopoulos-vineyards.com

Greece distributor: www.cavahalari.gr

23.12.2009

Wine geography