Greek Wine Ancient Vines, Modern Cellar

The oldest wine culture in the Western world, reborn — from the symposium krater to the volcanic vineyards of Santorini and the mountain estates of Macedonia.

Authentic Recipes & Culinary History

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Chapter I

Wine and the Ancient Greeks The Symposium, the Krater, and the God of Wine

No civilisation in the ancient world gave wine a more central place in its intellectual and cultural life than the Greeks. For the ancient Greeks, wine was simultaneously a gift of the gods, a medium of philosophical discourse, a civic institution, and the foundation of the most important social ritual in the Hellenic world — the symposium.

The cultivation of the grapevine in the Greek world began in the Bronze Age, with evidence of wine production on Crete dating to at least 2500 BCE. By the Mycenaean period, wine was sufficiently important that Linear B tablets from Pylos and Knossos record its production and distribution alongside other palace commodities. The Mycenaean Greeks traded wine across the eastern Mediterranean — amphorae containing residues of wine flavoured with pine resin and herbs have been found in Egypt and the Levant, establishing the ancient precedent for what would become the defining characteristic of Greek wine culture: abundance, variety, and a willingness to flavour and preserve wine with whatever the local landscape offered.

Dionysus and the Gift of Wine

The Greeks understood wine as a divine gift — specifically the gift of Dionysus, the god of wine, ecstasy, and transformation. The mythology surrounding Dionysus is among the most complex and psychologically rich in the Greek pantheon: he is simultaneously the god of liberation and the god of chaos, the force that dissolves social boundaries and the power that, if misused, destroys. This ambivalence about wine — its power to elevate and to devastate — is encoded in Greek wine culture from the symposium's insistence on diluting wine with water to the Dionysian festivals that periodically turned the social order upside down. The Greeks took wine seriously precisely because they understood its power.

To drink wine undiluted in ancient Greece was to drink as a barbarian. The symposium was built on the premise that wine, properly managed and properly discussed, was the ideal medium for the examined life.

The Symposium

The symposium — literally a drinking together — was the central institution of educated male social life in classical Athens. Guests reclined on couches in a room designed for the purpose, wine was mixed with water in a large vessel called a krater, and the evening proceeded through a combination of drinking, philosophical discussion, poetry, music, and entertainment. The ratio of wine to water was debated as seriously as the topics under discussion — too much water and the conversation was dull; too little and it descended into chaos. The ideal symposium was a demonstration that pleasure and reason were not merely compatible but mutually reinforcing.

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Chapter II

The Indigenous Varieties — Greece's Viticultural Treasure Assyrtiko, Xinomavro, Agiorgitiko and the Remarkable Diversity of Greek Grapes

Greece has over three hundred indigenous grape varieties, many of them found nowhere else on earth. They are the result of millennia of cultivation and natural selection in one of the most diverse viticultural environments in the world, and they represent one of the most exciting and least explored wine resources in the European wine tradition.

Assyrtiko is the most internationally celebrated of the Greek white varieties — a grape native to Santorini that has, in recent decades, attracted serious attention from winemakers and critics across the world. Grown on the volcanic soil of the Santorini caldera in the distinctive basket-shaped pruning system that protects the vines from the island's devastating summer winds, assyrtiko produces wines of extraordinary mineral intensity: bone dry, high in acidity, with a saline, citrus-driven character that reflects the volcanic terroir with almost shocking directness. The best Santorini assyrtiko has the structure and the ageing potential of a great white Burgundy, and at its finest it is one of the most distinctive white wines produced anywhere in the world.

Xinomavro — The Nebbiolo of Greece

Xinomavro is the great red grape of northern Greece — a variety of difficult temperament and magnificent potential that is grown primarily in the appellations of Naoussa, Amyndeon, and Goumenissa in Macedonia. The name means acid-black, a description that captures both the grape's fierce acidity and its deeply coloured skins. Xinomavro wines are tannic, high in acid, and slow to reveal their character — wines that can seem angular and austere in youth but that open into something of great complexity and elegance with age: dried tomato, olive, leather, spice, and an earthiness that is entirely their own. The comparison with Nebbiolo — the grape of Barolo and Barbaresco — is not made lightly; Xinomavro shares its structural austerity, its demand for patience, and its capacity to produce wines of extraordinary distinction from the right producer in the right vintage.

Agiorgitiko — The Blood of Hercules

Agiorgitiko — St George's grape — is the dominant red variety of the Peloponnese and the grape behind the Nemea appellation, sometimes romantically called the Blood of Hercules after the mythological hero who slew the Nemean lion. It produces wines of very different character depending on altitude and winemaking approach: at lower altitudes, soft, plummy, and approachable, ideal for early drinking; at higher elevations, structured, complex, and age-worthy, with a depth of dark fruit, herb, and spice that rewards cellaring. Nemea is the most widely planted PDO appellation in Greece, and the range of styles produced there — from supermarket-friendly everyday reds to serious, cellar-worthy wines — reflects both the versatility of the grape and the ambition of the region's best producers.

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Chapter III

The Great Wine Regions of Greece From the Volcanic Vineyards of Santorini to the High Estates of Naoussa

Greece's wine regions are as geographically diverse as the country itself — volcanic islands in the Aegean, high-altitude mountain vineyards in Macedonia and Epirus, sun-drenched plains in the Peloponnese, and the ancient wine landscapes of Attica and the Ionian coast. Each produces wines of distinct character, and together they constitute one of the most varied and exciting wine countries in Europe.

Santorini is the most internationally famous Greek wine region, and with good reason. The island's vineyards — some of the oldest ungrafted vines in Europe, spared the phylloxera plague by their volcanic soil — produce assyrtiko wines of mineral purity and extraordinary concentration from yields that are, by any international standard, vanishingly small. The island's unique kouloura training system, in which the vine is twisted into a low basket to protect the grapes from the meltemi wind, is one of the most visually dramatic viticultural sights in the Mediterranean world. Santorini also produces vinsanto — a sweet wine made from sun-dried assyrtiko grapes — of magnificent intensity and ageability, one of the great sweet wines of Europe.

Macedonia — The Emerging Giant

Macedonia in northern Greece is home to some of the country's most ambitious and most internationally successful wine producers. The Naoussa appellation, centred on the slopes of Mount Vermio at altitudes of up to 350 metres, produces the finest expressions of Xinomavro — wines of structure, complexity, and remarkable longevity that are beginning to attract serious international attention. The Drama region, in eastern Macedonia, has become a centre of innovation, with producers working with both indigenous and international varieties at high altitudes to produce wines of genuine distinction. The Halkidiki peninsula, with its three distinctive prongs extending into the Aegean, produces wines — particularly whites — of freshness and aromatic complexity that benefit from the moderating influence of the sea.

The story of Greek wine in the last thirty years is one of the great unheralded revivals in the wine world — a tradition that had been reduced to industrial production rediscovering its own extraordinary raw materials and beginning to make wines worthy of them.

Cephalonia and the Ionian Islands

The Ionian islands have their own distinct wine traditions, centred primarily on Cephalonia and its two remarkable indigenous varieties: Robola, a white grape of crisp, citrus-driven elegance grown on limestone slopes at altitude; and Mavrodaphne of Cephalonia, a sweet fortified red wine of great richness and complexity, quite different from the better-known Mavrodaphne of Patras on the mainland. Cephalonia's wines are among the most underrated in Greece — precise, characterful, and deeply expressive of their island terroir — and they represent one of the best arguments for seeking out Greek wine beyond the obvious.

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Chapter IV

Retsina — The Wine That Divides Opinion The World's Oldest Living Wine Style and Its Unexpected Renaissance

Retsina is the most ancient wine style still in commercial production anywhere in the world, and it is one of the most polarising. For its admirers — and they are legion in Greece — it is a wine of unique character, the perfect partner for the food of the taverna, an irreplaceable part of what a Greek summer tastes like. For its detractors, it is an acquired taste that they have declined to acquire.

The addition of pine resin to Greek wine is not a modern affectation or an accident of production — it is a practice with a documented history stretching back more than two and a half thousand years, and it was once universal across the ancient Mediterranean world. In antiquity, pine resin was used to seal the clay amphorae in which wine was transported and stored, and it inevitably flavoured the wine it came into contact with. Over centuries, this flavour became associated with Greek wine in the minds of producers and consumers alike, and when better storage methods made the practical need for resin obsolete, the Greeks continued to use it because they had come to love the taste.

The Modern Retsina Renaissance

For most of the twentieth century, retsina was produced in enormous quantities by large commercial wineries using industrial methods — cheap Savatiano grapes from the plains of Attica, heavy doses of resin, the result a wine of variable quality that gave Greek wine a reputation it is still working to overcome internationally. But in the last two decades, a new generation of small, quality-focused producers has begun making retsina with the same care applied to their unresinated wines — using better grapes, better base wine, and carefully controlled additions of Aleppo pine resin that integrate into the wine rather than dominating it. The results are wines of genuine interest: aromatic, complex, herbal, and refreshing, with a resinous character that enhances rather than overwhelms.

Savatiano — The Grape of Attica

Savatiano is the grape variety most closely associated with retsina production — a robust, drought-resistant white variety grown primarily in Attica, the region surrounding Athens, that has historically been one of the most widely planted varieties in Greece. For most of its modern history it has been used as a workhorse grape for bulk production, but in the hands of serious producers working with old vines at lower yields, Savatiano produces wines of surprising complexity and character — and retsinas of real distinction. The rehabilitation of Savatiano is one of the more interesting subplots of the contemporary Greek wine story.

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Chapter V

Sweet Wines — Muscat, Mavrodaphne & the Dessert Tradition Greece's Extraordinary Heritage of Sweet and Fortified Wines

Greece has one of the richest traditions of sweet wine production in the world, rooted in ancient practices of drying grapes in the sun, adding honey or concentrated must to wine, and preserving it through the addition of grape spirit. The sweet wines of Greece are among the country's most remarkable and least appreciated vinous treasures.

The Muscat wines of Samos are the most internationally recognised of the Greek sweet wines — golden, intensely perfumed, and naturally sweet from the extraordinary sugar content of the Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains grapes grown on the island's terraced hillsides. Samos Muscat is produced in several styles, from the lighter, more delicate Anthemis to the rich, concentrated Nectar made from sun-dried grapes, and the aged Vin Doux that develops extraordinary complexity over years in barrel. At its finest, Samos Muscat is one of the great Muscat wines of the world — a wine that distils the scent of an Aegean summer into something you can drink.

Mavrodaphne of Patras

Mavrodaphne of Patras is Greece's most important fortified wine — a rich, sweet red made from the Mavrodaphne grape in the appellation surrounding the city of Patras in the northern Peloponnese. Fortified with grape spirit to halt fermentation and preserve residual sugar, then aged in oak for a minimum of two years, Mavrodaphne develops a character of great complexity: dark fruit, dried fig, chocolate, and spice, with a warmth and richness that make it one of the most impressive dessert wines produced in the Mediterranean world. The finest examples, aged for decades in large wooden casks, develop a rancio character — an oxidative, nutty complexity — that rivals the great aged Madeiras and Tawnies of the Atlantic tradition.

Vinsanto of Santorini — made from sun-dried assyrtiko grapes on a volcanic island — is one of the most extraordinary sweet wines in the world. Its combination of volcanic minerality, oxidative complexity, and residual sweetness produces something that has no real parallel anywhere else.

Vinsanto — Not to Be Confused With Vin Santo

Vinsanto of Santorini is a completely different wine from the Italian Vin Santo of Tuscany, despite the superficial similarity of the names. Made from assyrtiko and other local varieties dried on the rooftops of the island for eight to fourteen days before pressing, it is then fermented and aged in oak barrels for a minimum of two years — often much longer. The result is a wine of extraordinary density and complexity: amber-coloured, intensely sweet but balanced by the variety's high natural acidity, with flavours of dried fruit, coffee, caramel, and the unmistakable volcanic mineral character that runs through all Santorini wines. It is one of the great dessert wines of the world, and it remains chronically undervalued internationally.

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Chapter VI

Wine at the Greek Table How Greeks Drink, What They Drink With, and Why the Carafe Still Matters

To understand how Greeks drink wine is to understand something important about how they relate to pleasure, community, and the table. Wine in Greece is not a performance, not a status signal, not a topic for competitive expertise — it is food, in the broadest sense: nourishment for the body and the spirit, inseparable from the meal it accompanies and the people it is shared with.

The carafe — the simple ceramic or glass jug of house wine that appears on the table in every traditional taverna — remains the dominant mode of wine service in Greek eating culture, and it is not a sign of unsophistication but of a very specific set of values. House wine in a good Greek taverna is the product of a local producer the owner knows personally, bottled or barrelled and served without ceremony at a price that makes drinking it for the duration of a long meal an entirely reasonable proposition. It is wine in its social function — not a luxury to be savoured and discussed but a lubricant for conversation, a companion to food, a pleasure that belongs to everyone at the table equally.

Wine and Food — The Greek Pairing Philosophy

Greeks do not, as a rule, agonise over wine and food pairings. The guiding principle of the Greek table — that wine should enhance the pleasure of eating and that both should be as locally produced and as simply excellent as possible — is a more reliable guide to good matching than any system of rules. Cold, crisp assyrtiko with grilled fish is not a pairing anyone needs to be told about; it is an obvious marriage of two things produced in the same place and destined for each other. Xinomavro with slow-braised lamb is equally self-evident. Retsina with oily, herb-laden mezze is a combination that has been working for two thousand years and requires no further justification.

Drinking Ouzo Before Wine

The traditional Greek meal sequence — ouzo or tsipouro with mezze before the main meal, wine with the food itself — is one of the most pleasurable ways of organising a long table gathering, and it reflects a deep understanding of how alcohol and food interact. The anise spirit cleans the palate and stimulates the appetite; the mezze moderates its effect; and by the time the main dishes and wine arrive, the table has had an hour to settle into conversation, the food has established the flavour register of the meal, and the wine is exactly what is needed. It is a system that has been refined over centuries, and it works.

The Greek wine renaissance of the last three decades — driven by a generation of winemakers trained in France, Italy, and California who returned home to work with indigenous varieties and terroirs of extraordinary potential — has produced wines that are, for the first time in the modern era, attracting serious international attention and serious international prices. This is not a temporary fashion but the beginning of a long overdue recognition that Greece is one of the great wine countries of the world, with a heritage of indigenous varieties, ancient viticultural landscapes, and winemaking traditions that no other country can replicate. The best Greek wines are not imitations of French or Italian originals — they are originals in their own right, and the table they belong to most naturally is a Greek one, loaded with mezze, loud with conversation, and lit by the particular quality of Mediterranean afternoon light that makes everything taste better than it has any right to.

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