The wineroads of Lesvos

(Wines from Lesvos and one of Limnos)

Maybe you are tired of the old ruins from the far and glorious past of Greece. Modern Greece has more to offer than its monuments from ancient history. For example – wine. In ancient times, when temples and castles predominated the landscape, Lesvos was famous for its wine. Soil and climate were perfect for great wines like Pramian (see Winery).

Somehow during the turbulent events of the past and the many changes of rulers, the viticulture was lost here on the island; and the grapes were killed by the lethal disease Philloxera.

In the rest of Greece it was mainly the same story, and when the country stood up from the dust of the independence wars, the second world war and its civil war, it resumed serious viticulture.

Maybe Lesvos has remained a little behind the mainland, where today they make fabulous wines, winning more and more international prizes. If you follow all of the routes described in the website of ‘Wineroads of Northern Greece’ then you will have seen half of the country.

I do not know of any wine roads here on Lesvos, even not an ouzo road, Lesvos’ most known product. However more and more people here on the island do produce quality wine, like the winery Methymneos, that has put the name Lesvos back on the wine map.

About a year ago a new winery was created in Megolochori: Oenophoros, with its excellent red wine Daphnis & Chloë, that became my favourite wine. Last April they introduced a white wine under the same name as well as the red wine Makaras. I have not had a chance to drink these last two wines but I am looking forward to tasting them.

The wine roads on Lesvos are not that extended with only two vineyards existing here. But you have to realize that wine is made in nearly each village you pass, wines that never reach the shops because they are made for local consumption. They make a beautiful wine in Anemotia; each year I drink litres of a tasteful biological wine from Plomari and during very long evenings, I enjoy the strong wine from Lisvori without getting drunk. So, in a way, all roads of the island lead to those small local wineries.

Methymneos (http://www.methymneos.gr/en/index.html) is situated in the small village of Chidera. Drive through Skalochori to Vatoussa, a beautifull village with tall traditional houses and a small but interesting folkloric museum. At the end of Vatoussa is the turnoff towards Chidera. The winery is at the beginning of the village and they provide interesting tours through their building. But the winery is not the only place to visit in Chidera: it also has the only digital museum in Greece: that of Georgios Jacovidis.

Jacovidis (1853 – 1932) was born in Chidera, studied art in Smyrna (today Ismir), continued his study at the art school in Athens and finally mastered his art in Munich. Most of his paintings are of people and lots of children, in a style called German Realism. His paintings are to be seen worldwide in museums like the Art Institute of Chicago and the National Gallery in Athens.

So, before you taste some wine at Methymneos, a visit to the digital museum is worthwhile. Works by Jacovidis are displayed digitally, and you can find facts around his work, his family and the time he lived, in an interactive way. It is a modern adventure in a traditional village.

Your wine road should not stop here in Chidera. You should go back to the main road and continue towards Andissa where you will pass the monastery of Perivoli. When the warden is present, in this now uninhabited monastery, you should not miss the opportunity to go into the church to admire the frescoes from the 16th century.

And now that this tour is becoming more a painting road than a wine road, you should drive another few kilometres where you will see – just before Andissa – the extension towards the small hamlet Tsithra, which is a small nearly deserted village, beautifully hidden in lush greenery, where you will find an Agios Nicholaos church also containing very old frescoes. The times I was there the lady holding the key of the church had always ‘just’ gone away. But I am sure you will be more lucky. After that I leave it up to you if you continue for a coffee to the marketplace of Andissa or to have a fresh dive into the sea at Gavathas.

The wine road towards the wine of Megalochori is not that romantic because it leads towards Mytilini where the actual winery is, a modern building where traces of old history can be found, just across from the supermarket Lidl. The vineyards of Oenophoros however are in Megalochori, and they have vineyards in Karionas, Eresos and Kalloni.

So if you want to sniff a little at the air and earth where Daphnis & Chloë comes form, the nicest way to Megalochori goes through the villages Ambeliko and Akrasi. Ambeliko is built against a steep mountain slope and at the foot you will find the village church with its small folkloric museum. You do not even have to enter the museum in order to admire the playful architecture of the church, the fountain and other paraphernalia.

Megalochori, in the past the capital of the island, is a cute mountain village and is just above Plomari, the ouzo capital of Lesvos. In this charming little city you can visit the distillery and museum of Barbayannis who makes one of the best ouzos of the island and, of course, you have to roam through the picturesque streets with mansions and the remains of old leather, soap and ouzo factories.

There is a third wine road. This one however goes over the sea towards the place with the best wines of the Aegean: the neighbouring island of Limnos. There you will find different wineries producing internationally praised wines as well as slobber wines, as we say in Holland – meaning good and not too expensive wine that you can drink litres of). Most wines are made with the Moschato Alexandrias grapes, but they experiment also with other grapes. Wines from Limnos keep on surprising me. I recently drank a fantastic white, Limnos Premium, which had a fresh sparkling taste. A few wineries also produce a sweet wine and those should be as famous as the Samos wine: they are great. The journey to Limnos cannot be made in one day, but for people who love wine, it is a must to take some days to visit this wine island.

By following these roads you will experience a big part of the island, where most wine is not yet in mass production but is only for local use. Lesvos, a wine island? Yes, indeed it is.

(Thanks to Mary Staples)

@ Smitaki 2011

Winery

What else should you do during a heat wave but write about drinking? Tourists used to think that the two national beverages of Greece were retsina and ouzo. Nowadays, however, many tourists have never even heard of retsina. Retsina is a white wine flavoured with pine resin (originally this resin helped preserve the wine). It is a light wine with a slight bitter taste, which makes it a wonderful drink during the heat.

Fashions change, including for drinks. Retsina has lost its popularity and has become more or less a folkloric beverage, despised by most tourists. It is beer they favour, and gaining popularity amongst Greeks too. Dutch brands like Heineken and Amstel appear more often on the table than the Greek made Mythos and Alpha. But there is also ordinary wine. Some tavernas serve home made local vintages, but the taste can be a little too acidic. Seldom will you be given a separate wine list and the wine that is offered is of medium range quality. But that is going to change. After many centuries Greek quality wines are on the rise again and are being voted best at international competitions.

Greek wine was very popular in Antiquity and there was a lively wine commerce, which reached far across European borders. Writers like Theophrastus (ca. 371 – 287 BC) and Homer (ca. 800 – 750 BC) wrote priceless details about wine production and trade in their times. Homer wrote so often about wine that a friend called him Vinesos Homerus (wine nose Homer).

The Greeks cannot claim to have invented wine, but it is said that Greek conquerors did bring viticulture first to Italy and then to France. Later on the Romans spread it further throughout their world.

But wine is much older than the way to Rome (a Dutch expression). Ever since the merry god Dionysus offered it to the people, Greek mythology has been full of anecdotes about how sweet the wine can be, but also how treacherous.

The old story goes that Dionysos taught an Athenian, Ikarios, how to make wine. When Ikarios offered some peasants a couple of cups of they got drunk and thought Ikarios was poisoning them. So they stoned him to death. The next morning they hid his body, but the dead man’s dog Maira showed his daughter Erigone where the body was. Erigone was so upset about her father’s death that she hanged herself. The dog Maira jumped into a well. Dionysus was very angry about all this and immortalised the three — Maira, Erigone and Ikarios — amongst the stars, then, as punishment, created a drought over the whole country and for Athens a plague of suicides: many young girls hanged themselves, just like Erigone.

It is said that Dionysos drank just three cups of wine a day: the first for health, the second for love and the third for sleep. The myth proceeds: the fourth cup is for violence, the fifth is revolt, the sixth for drunkenness, the seventh for black eyes, the eighth for the police, the ninth for billiousness and the tenth for madness.

In Roman times on the island Lesvorian wine was still famous and treasured, but after the Romans left, the great days of Lesvorian viticulture came to an end. And in the rest of the country, the golden centuries of Greek wine culture were numbered when the Greek states became part of the Byzantine Empire. The farmers had to pay more and more taxes and abandoned many vineyards. The monasteries took advantage, and monks bought up vineyards and specialized in making wine. After occupation by Franks and Venetians, the Ottomans ruled over Greece for several centuries and they were not wine lovers. The Greeks eventually freed themselves from Ottomans control, but the twentieth century proved unstable as national and international wars raged across the country: not a good time to build up viticulture. And then there was the devastatiing disease philloxera which destroyed many vineyards all across Europe, including Greece.

Not until the 1960s did Greek viticulture emerge from the ruins as retsina became very popular and wine houses put plenty of cheap wine on the market. In the seventies more wineries started and made better quality wines. A trend that continues now. Greece can be proud of its improving wine culture and some farmers are even trying to reintroduce the old grape varieties from Antiquity.

In the fourth century BC the most expensive wine traded in Athens was from Chios. But high quality wines also came from Lesvos, Kos, Naxos, Skopelos, Tasos and Chalkidiki. The most famous Lesvorian wine from Antiquity was Pramnian. These days it wouldn’t be thought of as a table wine at all, because it was sweet and thick as nectar. The grapes were harvested as late as possible to maximise their sugar content. They were then put in a container and, under their own weight, without the need for a wine press, they yielded a thick and sweet juice which ran free.

It wasn’t until 1985 that the family of Dimitris Lambrou reopened a winery on the island to make the wine Methimneos. They revived the old Lesvorian grape (Lesvos Grape Variety) and made it in the small village of Chidira — where they now bottle both red and white wines. The red is fresh and fruity, but expensive. The white isn’t cheap either, but it’s a fresh, dry and spicy wine.

Lots of Lesvorians make wine for their own use. The island has a perfect environment for viticulture: lots of volcanic earth and plenty of sunshine. These young local wines are often a little acidic, but sometimes you taste one and want to ask for a whole barrel — except that these days, home wine makers preserve the wine in plastic containers, not in wooden barrels, which I think means they miss the opportunity to make really good wine. My favorite (white) wine comes from the neighbouring island of Lemnos.

I do know that alcoholic beverages do not cool you down during heat waves. But when you drink enough water in between and you remember the 10 wine rules of Dionysos, nothing bad will happen. And by the way, the most common drink on this island is water. Not just because the island is rich in water springs (which all taste different) but because there is a lot of water in daily Greek life: tables laid out with food are always decorated with the bottles of water (also plastic these days) and when you are served with a coffee, an ouzo or a whisky, you always get a glass of water. Now that wine is becoming more and more popular it might be a good custom to serve water with your glass of wine.

(With thanks to Tony Barrell)

@ Smitaki 2009