A grape fit for the gods of Greece

The best assyrtiko comes from Santorini, with its volcanic soil and baking heat

The paradox of the island of Santorini is that, for many, it provides their introduction to Greek wine, and yet the grapes grown there are (for a generic appellation at least) among the most expensive in the world.

Assyrtiko is the name that people fall in love with. This white grape makes wines that are sculpted and tenacious; they reverberate with pithy flavours of lemon and white grapefruit; exactly the white you want in your glass on a hot summer’s day. It is grown elsewhere but, as Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, a native of Athens and wine producer on Santorini, says, “Assyrtiko is one thing; assyrtiko of Santorini is a totally different beast.

“What I really love is how incredibly structured this berry is and, at the same time, how it manages to keep a very high acidity, which is kind of spooky if you consider the warm environment in which those vines grow.”

The natural growing conditions on Santorini could reasonably be described as extreme. The island is part of the Cyclades group; summers are arid and hot. Its soils are volcanic: Santorini was circular until around 1600BC, when a gigantic eruption thought to be the most powerful explosion humans have ever seen, with a “blast… heard 3,000 miles away” according to Livescience.com, ripped out the middle of the island, leaving a croissant-shaped rock with steep cliffs that form the edge of a (mostly submerged) caldera and a smaller isle, Thirasia, close by.

The lack of clay in the soil – and, therefore, of water reserves – limits growth. “Wind is another serious problem,” writes Konstantinos Lazarakis in his book The Wines of Greece. “It can disrupt flowering and berry-set or increase the water stress in July and August.” All of this helps to explain why yields per hectare on Santorini are dramatically low. Then there’s the fact that there isn’t much space for vineyards at all: land on Santorini and Thirasia (grapes from here are allowed in the Santorini PDO) is not just visibly finite, but also has to compete with the demands of a far more lucrative tourism industry. Over the past decade, Santorini has become one of the world’s fastest-growing tourist destinations, with over two million visitors teeming around the island in 2018. At the same time, recognition for the island’s wines – in particular the assyrtiko – has also risen, leading to a demand and supply situation that has caused stratospheric price rises in the cost of the grapes.

This has come about because, as in Madeira, for instance, most of the vineyards on the island are owned not by wine producers, but by small farmers.

“There are close to 2,000 grape growers on Santorini,” says Paraskevopoulos, who rents land to grow 12-15 per cent of the grapes he needs and buys in the rest. “Many grape growers own less than one hectare of land – sometimes much less, say 0.2 or 0.3 hectares.”

Steve Daniel was the first British wine buyer to take Greek wine seriously two decades ago when he worked at Oddbins, and he now looks after a brilliant Greek portfolio as part of his role as a buyer at the importer Hallgarten & Novum Wines.

“In the late 1990s no one wanted Greek wine and you could buy assyrtiko by the litre as house wine in the tavernas,” he says. “But demand started going up and a bidding war started, so the price of grapes went from about €1 per kg five or six years ago to a height of about €4.75.”

It takes at least 1.3kg of assyrtiko grapes to make a single bottle of wine, which means a producer is looking at over €6 (£5.40) just for the grapes – before any equipment, bottling, marketing, distribution costs or his own salary, let alone taxes and an agent and retailer’s margin, are taken into account.

Most of those I spoke to were keen to point out that grape-growing on Santorini is back-breaking work and that this, together with the low yields, makes the rise understandable, at least up to a point. It isn’t as if a couple of gigantic landowners have just slammed up the prices and bought a big yacht.

However, the extraordinary surge in the cost of Santorini assyrtiko grapes has priced most of these wines off the supermarket shelves. “Everyone says, ‘We need Santorini,’ and you give them a price and they say, ‘WHAT? No,’” says Daniel. “So then they look at assyrtikos from elsewhere in Greece.”

The assyrtiko grown elsewhere in Greece can be very good, though different, with a more fruity profile. I’ve tasted brilliant examples from Crete.

Mary Pateras, of specialist Greek importer Eclectic Wines, showed me a gorgeous, wild-fermented example from the 2019 vintage, made in the Peloponnese by the Skouras Winery. When it finds a retailer listing (soon, I hope, the first samples have only just landed in the country), I will let you know where you can buy it.

Pateras also represents Hatzidakis, the feted producer that played such a large role in the rise of Santorini wines, thanks to the extraordinary talent of the late Haridimos Hatzidakis. 2016 was the last vintage Haridimos Hatzidakis made, so they have a collector status, but they do showcase the sense of minerality and energy that marks Santorini assyrtiko out as being so special. Splash out on Hatzidakis Skitali 2016 Santorini (Theatre of Wine, £52) and you’ll see what I mean.

‘A bidding war was started as demand increased’