Where are they now? – Mary Pateras of Eclectic Wines

From a Newcastle childhood to spearheading Greek wine’s renaissance in the UK, Mary Pateras built Eclectic Wines into a bridge between two cultures. Her story is one of persistence, partnership and passion — and of knowing when to pass the torch.

Mary and Poly Pateras

With her Greek surname and accentless English, you wouldn’t take Mary Pateras for a Geordie, but she was born in Tynemouth in 1953 and never far from the North Sea. Her father was a shipbroker, and on her mother’s side, generations had owned small coaster ships that once ferried coal up and down the north coast. Her childhood in Newcastle was marked by the tragedy of her father’s untimely death, from a brain tumour at the age of 54, when she was just twelve, following which her mother moved the family to Hexham.

Since shipping had always been in the family, the forecast was clear: it was her destiny to marry into it. In her first week at Kent University, where she studied social anthropology, she met Polys, a Greek student of economics and accounting destined for the family’s shipping business in London. By the end of her second year, friendship had blossomed, and they married when Mary was 22 and Polys 25 and settled in Islington.

Finding her way beyond shipping

Wine was not yet on the horizon. Mary began a brief career at Marks & Spencer on a staff management course, but since she was, by her own admission, ‘a bit bolshie,’ the M&S straitjacket didn’t suit her. The structure and discipline, on the other hand, would later prove invaluable.

In the late 1970s, Polys’ work took them to the shipyards of Hokkaido, Japan’s most northerly island, where Mary found herself a head taller than the local women and deeply intrigued by the culture. Her stay was short, though. A flooded home called her back to London. A family soon followed. Their first son, Costa, was born in 1979, and Alexis two years later. Mary devoted herself to motherhood — running a busy home and hosting lively dinner parties. “We still weren’t wine people then, but we much enjoyed eating, drinking and having people round.”

The birth of Eclectic Wines

Through a close friend of Polys — Haris Antoniou, Alexis’s godfather and the owner, with Eva Boehme, of Efharis Estate near Athens, Mary was introduced to the world of Greek wine. While staying with Mary and Polys for the London Wine Fair, Haris suggested they start a business importing Greek wines to the UK. “By this point in time, we were empty nesters, so we thought, why not, let’s give it a go, even though the only experience we had was actually drinking the stuff.” There was no business plan, not even a plan, other than to promote the wines of Greece positively.

Haris drew up a list of wine producers representative of Greece across the regions and they went to see them at the Athens Wine Fair. They discovered — and took on board — Hatzidakis in Santorini, Harlaftis in the Peloponnese, the Samos Co-op and Efharis itself. They launched Eclectic Wines in 2002 with a grand tasting at London’s Hellenic Centre and, by the following year, were bringing British wine journalists to Greece to explore its vineyards.

Overcoming scepticism

Mary got hold of a copy of Harpers magazine, went through it with a fine-tooth comb to find anyone who looked like they might want to stock something interestingly different. She was never off the phone except for sending samples, mostly to independent merchants and a few restaurants, begging them not to pooh-pooh Greek wines. The British market was sceptical at first, and there were setbacks, rivalries and even accusations from competitors.

Despite finding themselves on the butt of Retsina and Demestica jokes, they persisted, refusing to pigeonhole Greek wine as merely ethnic. “It had to stand alongside French and Italian wines on its own merit”, says Mary. One evening at dinner, the broadcaster Derek Cooper advised them: “Mary, don’t back yourself into the ethnic market as you’ll go nowhere.” This encouragement helped Mary to focus on presenting Greece as a serious player in global winemaking — and it helped that Steve Daniel at Oddbins had already made a splash with Greek wine.

Breakthrough and recognition

Her breakthrough came when The Wine Society bought 20 cases from Hatzidakis, followed by Waitrose in 2007. Suddenly, Greek wines were winning praise in the press and appearing on supermarket shelves. Hatzidakis was featured at a Waitrose conference in Cookham and soon after topped a blind tasting of Assyrtiko at Decanter. Hatzidakis’s Assyrtiko became a symbol of Greece’s wine renaissance. Greek wine had arrived.

Building a lasting legacy

The years that followed were a mix of hard graft that “felt at times like swimming through porridge.” Still, the business grew. Emma Dawson MW at M&S invited Mary to act as their agent for a major Eastern Mediterranean promotion, which put several new wines on the map. After Dawson moved on, M&S created the Found range, which Mary successfully tendered for. One of the wines, Moschofilero, remains in the range to this day.

Mary championed new producers like Apostolos Thymiopoulos. When she first met him, his production was tiny, but she saw potential. She encouraged him to produce an unoaked Xinomavro, which became Jeunes Vignes. ‘Everyone we showed it to at the price point loved it, it took off and today he’s a star in Greece.’

Passing the torch

These partnerships with M&S, Waitrose, The Wine Society and later Aldi expanded the reach of Greek wines across Britain. When Covid hit, Eclectic Wines proved resilient as home drinking surged. After two decades at the kitchen table, fielding calls, sending samples and nurturing relationships, Mary began to think about the future.

In spring 2024, after a particularly strong year, Mary and Polys decided to bow out gracefully, passing Eclectic Wines to Keeling Andrew, a company they trusted to care for their producers. “We wanted to jump before we were pushed,” Mary says. “To leave on a high and make sure our winemakers were in good hands.”

Through challenges — including the death of their close friend and winemaker Haridimos Hatzidakis in 2017 — Mary’s conviction never wavered. “Yes, it’s the end of an era,” she says, “but the real profit was in the experience. Now for the bucket list.”