At last, Greek wines are having a moment in the sun. Rashly billed decades ago as the next big thing, Greece has taken a while to go from niche to mainstream. Yet now every supermarket buyer is on the hunt for a tasty Greek to bottle under their own label, so strong is demand. Come the spring, Marks & Spencer, Aldi, Waitrose and The Wine Society are launching exciting new Greek wines.
It’s all down to this sunny eastern Mediterranean country’s ability to produce the sort of refreshing yet intense, dry, tangy, aromatic whites and rosés that are so popular at the moment. Factor in the unusual, food-friendly flavours of a treasure trove of indigenous grapes, keen prices and the mineral lick that Greek wines display, and it’s easy to see why the country has become a hit with novices and connoisseurs alike.
Oily, pine sap-scented retsina didn’t do Greece any favours, but a lack of big producers and co-ops due to the wild, rocky, mountainous terrain of what is one of the oldest wine producers in the world most certainly did. Growing grapes and making wine here is mostly left to hands-on small producers.
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Start your Greek odyssey in Macedonia and the less sweltering north, home to the country’s finest reds made from the xinomavro grape grown in Naoussa and likened to barolo no less, due to its assertive savoury style, complete with lashings of tannin and acidity; Thymiopoulos’s version (see star buys) makes the perfect restrained introduction.
Overall it’s worth noting that Greek reds are not in the same league yet as the predominant whites and rosés. Also in Macedonia, try Kir-Yianni, one of the bigger wineries. It makes brilliant value assyrtiko, the country’s answer to chablis at a fraction of the price. Even Morrisons’ 2023 The Best Assyrtiko, yours for £10.25, has masses of lemon and orchard fruit charm.
On to central Greece, fanning out northwest of Athens, where its warmer climate produces some surprisingly good chardonnay. Try Aldi’s fat, buttery, stone-fruited 2023 Filos Estate Chardonnay, an £8.49 bargain. Southern Greece is hotter still, and Nemea is the place to go for the country’s most widely planted red grape, agiorgitiko; in the right hands it tastes a bit like merlot. Go for Bizios Estate’s superior 2019 Nemea Single Vineyard Agiorgitiko, with its richly spiced, soft black plum fruit (maltbyandgreek.com, £27.50). Of those from the sea breeze-cooled islands, Santorini’s awesome, saline assyrtiko is a mus-have (see star buys), but recently it’s the wines of blisteringly hot Crete that have bowled me over. Try the Idaia Winery’s unusual 2023 Thrapsathiri Ocean, from the Dafnes district, made exclusively from the promising thrapsathiri grape with delicious, tangy, bay leaf and lime zest fruit (wine-republic.co.uk, £22).
From left: hymiopolous Xinomavro Jeunes Vignes; Blueprint Greek White Wine; Hatzidakis Santorini Familia Assyrtiko; Alpha Estate Single Vineyard Hedgehog Rosé
Greek stars
2022 Thymiopoulos Xinomavro Jeunes Vignes
13 per cent, Booths, £14.75
Xinomavro is the finest Greek red and even this young vine edition is all seductive bright, leafy, gamey fruit.
2023 Blueprint Greek White Wine
12 per cent, Waitrose, £9
Lovely dry, light, zesty, basil and apple-scented moschofilero-led, northeastern Peloponnese aperitif white.
2022 Hatzidakis Santorini Familia Assyrtiko
14 per cent, thewinesociety.com, £30.50
A gold-standard assyrtiko with powerful yet elegant, smoky, steely, sea-breezy chablis-esque charm.
2023 Alpha Estate Single Vineyard Hedgehog Rosé
13 per cent, vinvm.co.uk, £23
Delicious world-class, bold, zingy, herby, grapefruit zest-spiked xinomavro rosé from northern Greece.
From left: Jackson Estate Widow Pinot Noir; Terre di Vita Organic Zibibbo; The Best Pecorino; Upturned Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon
This week’s supermarket star buys
2019 Jackson Estate Widow Pinot Noir, New Zealand
13.5 per cent, Booths, £18, down from £21
Smoky, creosote-edged, big food-loving French oak-aged pinot noir from Marlborough.
2023 Terre di Vita Organic Zibibbo, Sicily
12 per cent, Waitrose, £7.99, down from £9.99
Lively white from western Sicily, with oodles of musky, exotic, hot house zibibbo grape pizzazz.
2024 The Best Pecorino, Italy
13 per cent, Morrisons, £8.50
Handy, spritzy, greeny-gold unoaked white from Abruzzo, with masses of uplifting herb and citrus fruit.
Upturned Shiraz-Cabernet Sauvignon, Australia
13 per cent, Tesco, £5.75
Sweetly red-fruited, fat, juicy, non-vintage, French and American oak-chipped, machine-harvested bargain.
Dining and Cooking