If you take Greece apart, you will be left with an olive tree, a grapevine and a boat.
Odysseas Elytis (Nobel Prize for Literature, 1979)
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please get ready because in about twenty minutes we will arrive at the port of Santorini. Thank you for travelling with us.’ The captain’s voice would mark the beginning of this beautiful wine journey. I was so excited I quickly threw everything in my bag and rushed to the deck, only to be left speechless from the spectacle unravelling before me…
The remnants of a volcanic eruption float on the royal blue of the Aegean Sea and upon this ashen land, tiny white houses reflect the sunbeams towards every direction. I took a deep breath, a smile formed on my face and I got ready to disembark. I didn’t want to leave my friend waiting.
‘Welcome to the island. Did you have a nice journey?’ asked Ilias after a warm handshake. To tell you the truth, for the last two hours it was particularly windy and it took me some time to get used to walking on the ground again. ‘I know what will set you straight, a nice glass of wine! I know just the place’ said Ilias and he led the way. After a few minutes’ walk we reached a small tavern at the end of an alley. We sat in the most isolated corner and ordered two glasses of Assyrtiko and chlorotiri, a delicious local cheese served with olives and bread. The wine had wet stone and citrus juice aromas along with some wild herbal hints and an underlying salinity. In the mouth it felt like licking a rock on a sandy beach, with bergamot and lime flavours complemented by white pepper and thyme. The acidity, minerality and complexity of the wine were absolutely balanced and I immediately turned to Ilias asking for confirmation. ‘Indeed, that my friend, is an old-vines Assyrtiko from Cavalieros, one of the island’s oldest vineyards’.
Ilias Roussakis represents the new wave of Greek winemakers focusing on modern, innovative and sustainable methods with respect to tradition and local grape varieties. He studied Viticulture in Athens, Bordeaux & Montpellier and has been working in Santorini
since 2002 as a viticulturist, vineyard manager and wine consultant for local wineries. As of 2018 along with his business partners he has created his own label, ALS Extreme Terroir, a powerful expression of Assyrtiko. He would help me understand what is it that makes old vine Assyrtiko such a unique wine.
How old exactly are the vines on the island though? ‘Sadly, Greece did not keep official certification records until 1990. This means we can only estimate by experience what the case was before then. Research has shown that some vineyards have been located in the same spot for up to two thousand years. Some old vines are 150 years old and given that the most efficient way to propagate a vine here is by layering, it gets even more complicated as it may lead to a rooting system up to 200 years old. Don't forget that phylloxera never made it here so the vines were never destroyed or grafted with American rootstock’.
I took another sip of my wine and tried to figure out whether this old vine Assyrtiko represented the island’s unique terroir. ‘An old vine requires extremely careful handling’ says Ilias. ‘The production is 30-70% less than normal, there is less wood to work with and pruning is a real challenge. Some old-vine vineyards in Santorini give the lowest yields/hectare in the world and that leads to concentrated, creamy and structured wines. I suppose it’s rather the exceptional quality than the expression of terroir though that makes them unique’.
There is no doubt that climate change is on our doorstep. Greece has suffered for the last couple of years from wet springs and summers, extreme heat waves and floods. Do these conditions affect the old vines in Santorini? ‘Of course they do’ Ilias responds nodding his head. ‘Imagine that in the 1990s they used to carry water on mules during a heat wave and to dig ditches because of floods. It requires massive human effort because, well, we are talking about the remains of a volcano and most vineyards are difficult to approach. For example we faced a hail storm this spring and all we could do was wait until it stopped’.
Old vine Assyrtiko is not your everyday wine price-wise. An average bottle starts from 40-50€ and my last question is whether it’s worth it. There was a long pause before his response… ‘I mean, the wine is nice, well-made, but remember we live in a social media era and when something becomes a trend or a hype we have to be a bit cautious at the end of the day. After all it’s the juice in the bottle and the winemaker’s touch that should define the price and in this case they both are supreme'.
The aftertaste of the wine was still in my mouth when we left that tavern. The sea breeze of the port and the heat kicked in the moment we stepped out. Ilias had to catch the next boat to Athens and I had to go on to my next stop, an old vine vineyard.
As the bus swirled around on the island roads I took some time to observe the surroundings. An astonishing landscape of black and grey with no sign of living trees but some bushes at the edge of the road. How can any plant grow in this land of desert sand and lunar rock fragments..?
The original soil of Santorini consisted mainly of limestone. However, in 1612 BC a tremendous volcanic explosion took place creating the present day caldera (8 km × 10 km size and 300–400 m deep). Thira, Thirasia and Aspronisi are the fragments that remained above sea level after the collapse of the volcano’s cone, while the rest of the island disappeared beneath the sea. The lava that blasted into the sky cooled down as it fell, forming volcanic rocks of all shapes. Therefore, today’s topsoil consists of basalt, volcanic ashes, sand, pumice stone and some other formations of lava, a mixture known as aspa.
The bus reached Episkopi and I headed towards the Estate Argyros, one of the most significant winemakers of the island, where I would meet my good friend Argyro Frantzeskaki. Argyro has a Master’s Degree in Viticulture & Oenology and after working in vineyards in Italy and New Zealand she decided to relocate in Santorini, where she has worked as an Oenologist since 2017. She blames her grandfather for planting the wine seed in her as she still recalls the summers she used to spend in his vineyard…‘Are you looking for Argyro? She is training some vines at the moment’ said the receptionist of the winery and pointed towards the road I should follow to reach her. She welcomed me with a bright smile, a hug and a bottle of cold water. ‘Let’s talk while walking in the vineyard, shall we?’ she said taking a hat out of her backpack. ‘You know, you are walking on viticultural history at the moment. Most of these vines are 70 years old and the Estate owns some plants at Pyrgos and Episkopi regions that are over 150 years old’. I looked down to see the traditional kouloures, basket-shaped vines to protect the fruit from heat and the strong Aegean winds. If that was her way of saying ‘mind your step’ she definitely made her point…
‘You spend a lot of time in the lab. What makes an old vine wine special from a chemical aspect?’ I asked. ‘There is no scientific research that proves old vine wines are better than the rest. On a laboratory level, we do expect optimum levels of acidity, pH and solid compounds along with high concentration of phenolics and anthocyanins which could possibly lead to high quality wine production. Wines from old vines are also of a high concentration, aromatic complexity and intense expression of the varietal characteristics. The vinification methods each winemaker uses though are of major importance. Therefore the final identity of the product depends on many things’.
‘And what about the grapes of old vines? Do they differ as well?’ I asked. ‘Definitely’ she responded quickly. ‘Because the performance of old vines is low, they usually produce smaller grapes while the skins are thicker, producing more concentrated fruit which is depicted on the wines’ structure’.
A couple of workers rushed between us carrying a large vine plant on their shoulders. ‘Ah, another Esca disease victim…It’s the third this summer. This disease, in which Phaemoniella chlamydospora and Phaeacremonium minimum are implicated, is very frequently observed in old vines. In general terms though, old vines are quite tolerant to diseases because of their rooting system depth. It can reach up to six meters and absorb humidity from the lowest layers of the subsoil’.
In the middle of August, the temperature was a bit above 30°C. A couple of clouds would interrupt the powerful summer sun and I wondered whether we would encounter the same weather conditions in ten or twenty years. ‘Average temperatures and rainfall affect wine production globally. We observe that early ripening varieties for example are struck by the climate change nowadays. In Santorini, the vines are already surviving under extreme conditions and as the average annual rainfall ratio drops we notice a significant decrease of production.
As our conversation reached to an end and we were parting ways I saw her reach toward the ground and take a pair of scissors from her pocket. She cut a short branch of a vine with some leaves on it and handed it to me. ‘Take this back to Athens as a memory and if you plant it in your garden you might even have a new plant next year. Don’t worry; it is one of the new ones. We don’t expect them to give any wine until 2025’.
The boat to Athens would leave soon. As the sun set behind the island I thought about all those moments of history in time and how these old vines were still standing there and for a moment I felt young and tiny…
