Greek Wine Appreciation Event

Last month, we hosted a group of close friends of Botana & Tea at Crane Living at OUE Downtown with Dominik Brun from Giannikos Winery. A summary of what went down during our event.

 

Brief history of Greek Wine

The first traces of wine making was dated during 4500BC - 1000BC in North Greece and later in Crete and Aegean Islands such as Santorini.

1000BD - 1453 AD (Archaic, Classic, Roman and Byzantine Times) were the golden years of Greek wine making and development of the first wine cultures. Wine making then began to spread all over Greece and Greek wines became famous and were traded all over Europe and Asia Minor until China. 

A series of wars and conflicts during the 1830 - 1950 made it difficult for Greece to continue development of their wine making. It was during that time that France, Italy and Spain wine production was at an increase.

Today, with a new generation of winemakers taking over, there is aN increased focus on the indigenous grape varieties and we see a steady climb in Greek wine getting back on top. 

The Birth of Giannikos Winery

In 1896, when Greece rekindled the Olympic flame hosting the international Olympic games, it was also the year when the Giannikos family planted their first vines in ancient Mycenae. Exactly a hundred years after, a devastating fire burned the old buildings to the ground. It was then that Michalis Giannikos regenerated the independent family business by building a modern winery on the slopes of Ancient Corinth and planted more vineyards. In 2021, Giannikos Winery achieved gold and silver awards at an International Wine Competition for the first time. The success continues until today, having won several awards for all of our wines at wine competitions around the globe. Today Giannikos Winery is considered one of the leading organic wineries in Greece with worldwide exports of high-quality wines of both indigenous Greek varieties but also international grape varieties.

Facts & Myth of Organic Wine

During our session with Dominik, our guests were able to ask him about some of the facts & myths of organic wine. Here are some of them:

On Natural Wine
There is no such thing as natural wine, as all wine making are natural. The more accurate description should be “Low intervention wine”. Low intervention wines are wines that have little to no yeast or very little sulphites added to stabilise the wine and reduce interference with the fermentation. 

Are organic wines sulphite-free?
Sulphites are a natural byproduct of fermentation, so there will be traces of sulphites in every wine. Most organic wine producers use a minimum amount of sulphites to help stabilise the wines. The amount of added sulphites is regulated based on the laws of organic certification.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our friends tasted a total of 4 indigenous Greek wine varieties during our event, At Sea, Windmill, Retsina and Lion. Seeing how those who attended really enjoyed themselves, we hope to be able to host more of these events to come! If you would be interested to be kept in the know, do drop us a note and we’ll get back to you when the next