Eleven CamSocLon members tasted wines from Greece, which had the longest coastline on the Mediterranean basin with too many islands to count. Moreover, Greece, the birthplace of Western civilisation, had, as you’d expect, a wine culture from the early Bronze Age, and there was evidence of wine-making in Neolithic Greece around 4300 BCE. But if wine had always been an important part of Grecian life, it was really only in the last 20 years that the country embraced its extraordinary range of native grapes and began producing wines of unique character and quality. Many of these modern wines had only recently been exported and were not widely distributed even in London, but rest assured, our selection was cherry-picked, every wine was critically acclaimed, and overall, it gave us a realistic picture of how far Greece had come. We tasted eleven wines: one sparkling, one rosé, four whites, four reds, and a sweet:

– Domaine Karanika Extra Cuvee de Reserve 2016 in magnum
– Alkemi Xinomavro Rosé 2022
– Mitravelas ‘White on Grey’ 2023
– Alpha Estate Turtles Vineyard Malagouzia 2023
– Hatzidakis Santorini Familia 2022
– OENO P Tria Ampelia 2020
– Daloufakis Dafnios Liatiko 2021
– Gaia Agiorgitiko 2022
– Diamantis-Papageorgiou Magoutes Parcel Selection Xinomavro 2017
– Alpha Estate “Turtles” Syrah 2014
– Opera Epitome Samos NV

Organised by Richard Pearey