Greek Wines – Gastronomy Greece

    Greek Wine

    Apart from giving birth to Dionysus, patron god of wine, Greece is the birthplace of the first VQPRD wines in history. They were the wines of the islands of Chios and Thassos, renowned in the entire ancient world. Due to various historic and social reasons, as well as natural disasters, the art of wine-making was neglected from the middle of the nineteenth century until the early sixties. It was then that the ancient traditions of wine-making started being rediscovered and today one can find many excellent Greek wines produced all over the country. When tasting Greek wine, bear in mind that it is a product of a distinctive environment and of grape varieties unknown to western wine lovers. The wines of Greece are divided into 4 distinct categories: 1) the Controlled Appellations of Origin, 2) the Appellations of Origin of Superior Quality, 3) local wines and 4) table wines.

    The Controlled Appellations of Origin is a category that contains only liqueur wines, such as the Mavrodaphne of Kefaloniá and Patrás, the Muscat wines of Patras, Limnos, Kefalonia, Rhodes and the Doux of Samos.

    The Appellations of Origin of Superior Quality category contains many of the best wines of Greece. There are 20 areas so far that have the right to Appellation of Origin. In northern Greece, there are the Appellations of Zitsa, Amynteo, Gouménissa and Náoussa, in Chalkidiki the Appellation of Playies Melitona, in Thessaly Anchialos and Rapsani, near Athens Kantza, in the Peloponnese the appellations of Patras, Mantinia and Nemea, on the Ionian islands the Robola of Kefalonia, on the islands of Paros, Limnos, Rhodes and Santorini, and finally on Crete there are the appellations of Acharnes, Peza, Sitia and Daphnes. The above categories of Appellations have a blue and a red banderole respectively, affixed over the mouth of each bottle.
    Finally, the other two categories of local and table wines hide many pleasant and intoxicating surprises for the wine lover.