“What a wine”, I commented on the Instagram feed of a London wine merchant who had just posted a new import from Etna. “Good enough to give anything on Santorini a run for its money”, he gently teased, fully knowing my affinity for the wind-caressed Aegean rock. “…and at only three times the price”, I retorted, taking the bait.
Innocent social media banter aside – my interlocutor, after all, is every bit as much a fan of Assyrtiko as of Carricante – my response summarises neatly the situation Santorini Assyrtiko finds itself in. In its native market, it can feel too expensive, even unattainable – Greece does produce many decent white wines, sold domestically at a fraction of the price Santorini commands. But zoom out a bit and, by international standards, Assyrtiko remains a remarkable bargain. The terroir is a signal of quality that is a rarity in the global market. You can think of exceptional Chablis, and very poor Chablis. Most Etna whites are a far cry from Pietra Marina. But Santorini Assyrtiko on a label is such a guarantor of quality, that it takes a giant German discounter to water down.
Another element that keeps surprising me, despite more than two decades of following the island’s wines, is its relatively small vintage variation. While quantity oscillates, and often dramatically so, the quality variations seem to be smaller, and usually confined to this or that producer (often without even a discernible pattern). I’m increasingly thinking of good and bad vintages as those that give wines that will age further than the three-to-five years that seems to be Assyrtiko’s sweet spot. This is hardly a groundbreaking insight in the rest of the wine world of course, but in Santorini it is still a relative novelty. It is also an element in flux, as producers learn more and more about their land – it is probably not too much of a hyperbole to say that Santorini wine producers have learned more about the intricacies of their terroir the past twenty years than they did in the two hundred before that.
Tasting some of the 2021s was indicative of the quality potential. Many producers referred to this as a catastrophic year, describing Mad Max-like weather conditions, but the wines now in bottle often show very well. (One advantage of high prices is, of course, the ability to reject subpar grapes and survive on a smaller production in the odd unfortunate vintage.) After years of what felt like relentless challenges, from financial crises to pandemics, it was great to see people substantially more upbeat, and often reporting booming business. The 2022 vintage, combining both quantity and quality, seems to have helped. It was not entirely without challenges, and some described it as a difficult or peculiar year. The key challenge was heavy rains that arrived late in August, which affected most producers, and surprised all of them. (Ioanna Vamvakouri, oenologist and Vice President of Mikra Thira, told me she had never seen this in 20 years working on the island.) However, with most wines now either in bottle or already on the shelf, just about everyone seems happy with it. Yannis Valambous of Vassaltis described it to me as almost a perfect vintage, while for Matτhaios Argyros of the eponymous Estate it is on par with 2019, his vintage of the decade.
In an island whose wineries you can count on fingers and toes, any opening is news, but when this comes from one of the living legends of the island, it dominates any conversation. Oeno P (or perhaps Oeno π if you want to maintain its creator’s ambiguous intentions) is the new project of Paris Sigalas in his family’s Canava, the traditional cave-like spaces Santorinians used as wineries and distilleries. It’s been just over two years since Sigalas sold his eponymous Domaine (a winery that marked the new era of Greek wine in the ‘90s) but, as he told me, he still has “open accounts” with the Santorini vineyard and, happily for us, a pensioner’s life is not for him. The first label, 3 Ampelia (Vineyards) which is already available, builds on the work Sigalas did back at the Domaine – indeed these three vineyards are part of the seven he had chosen for single vineyard bottlings in the past, under the “7 Villages” theme. For what it’s worth, its second iteration, in the notorious 2021 vintage, is one of my top wines in this report.
Oeno P’s next wine will be a Nykteri, but one that won’t use the term. This traditional term (meaning “all-nighter”) referred to the practice of picking the ripest grapes before dawn, followed by long stay in barrel, which was meant to lead to premium wine. Today, however, the legal requirements for the term are simply 3 months in barrel and a minimum ABV of 13.5% (the latter, these days at least, feels practically redundant for Assyrtiko). For most of the past two decades, there seemed to be a loose tendency for Nykteri (or Nikteri, as some would have it) to signify heavier, fuller wines, flirting with the off-dry, but this is changing fast. Another impressive new entry in the Santorini range is Mikra Thira’s Nykteri, which is a wine of the supreme finesse. Vamvakouri told me that, in her interpretation, Nykteri would refer to wines that would have been made with more attention to detail and would thus be cleaner and, in an age where wine faults would barely register as such, the least oxidised. Varvarigos of Santo Wines, the island’s cooperative, seems to be thinking along the same lines. He mentioned that his father used to send him to buy a very pale Nykteri, which he referred to as “the light one”. Santo has been another dissenter in the wood-first style, and their future releases will make this touch lighter still. With so many styles in the market, however, the big question is if the term means anything anymore, besides a vague nod to a historical piece of trivia. (I’m inclined to think it doesn’t – for the first time in this report I’m not presenting Nykteri as a separate category.)
Another element that seems to be attracting more interest is the potential of Santorini’s red wines. In the domestic market, this was dominated for years by Domaine Sigalas’s Mavrotragano, a very rich, oak-led red which became an icon. While this style is still popular, there seems to be a renewed interest in dry Mandilaria, giving rougher, lighter wines.
But perhaps it is better if nothing outstanding comes out of the island in red. After all Santorini already gives the country’s best white wines and, in Vinsanto, the country’s best sweet wines. There needs to be one area where it gives the rest of Greece a chance.
DISTINCTIONS
As often, any of the top few wines could have taken the “Assyrtiko of the Year” title. All six wines awarded 95 points are exceptional, and separating between them is hair-splitting territory. Pyritis 2020 probably drinks best right now, while Tria Ampelia 2021 is a unique, and new, take on high-end Santorini. Wild Ferment 2022 is one of the best vintages of this instant-classic label yet, while Mikra Thira’s Nikteri 2020 is a wine of remarkable elegance and finesse. In the photo-finish, however, I went with Monsignori 2020, which is not only exceptional now, but feels like it will be the most long-lived of the bunch. That two of these labels also feature as “Discoveries of the Year” shows just how much potential there is still for Santorini.
On the Vinsanto front, it is difficult to see Argyros’s Late Release leaving the top spot. It is always a larger-than-life wine, and the 2002 is one of the best yet. It’ll be interesting to see if the 20yo Vinsanto, Santo is planning to release will be a contender – their “standard” Vinsanto had an exceptionally strong showing in the 2016 vintage. Gaia’s Vinsanto, with 10 years of ageing, is also an excellent wine.
On the “Any Other Business” front that are Santorini’s orange, rosé, and red wines, I was quite taken by St Nikolas 2021 – Mavrotragano/Mandilaria blends might just be the way forward for balanced Santorini reds.
Greeks might bulk at the thought of a wine that costs €25 in the domestic market featuring as “Best Value for Money”, but with the prices even entry level Santorini fetches nowadays, it’s difficult to beat Karamolegos Santorini 2021 for price-quality ratio. This is simply an impeccable wine for its price level, and archetypal of its terroir.
As for “Producer of the Year”, it’ll probably be a while before someone knocks Estate Argyros off that perch. The quality across the range is exceptional, and it is very much the leading light of the island. However, Karamolegos and Gaia also had a very strong year, while Mikra Thira is shaping up to be a leader amongst those with a smaller offering. Finally, for sheer variety of range, it is difficult to beat the Santo Wines co-op – if it can be vinified, they do it.
Producer of the Year – Estate Argyros
Santorini Assyrtiko of the Year – Estate Argyros Monsignori 2020
Vinsanto of the Year – Estate Argyros Vinsanto Late Release 2002
Other Santorini wine of the Year – Anhydrous St Nikolas 2021
Discovery of the Year – Mikra Thira Nikteri 2020 & Oeno P Tria Ampelia 2021
Best Value for Money of the Year – Karamolegos Santorini 2021
Photo by Tânia Mousinho on Unsplash