WINES OF THE TIMES - As Greek as the Sea
The white wine grapes of Greece — with names like moschofilero, roditis
and assyrtiko — sound a bit scary, like alien beings. But I think of them as
the constituents of a parallel universe in which crowds of people embrace these
wonderfully refreshing, intriguing whites, rather than default to generic
summer white wines like pinot grigio. I imagine this for the assyrtiko,
especially.
Not that I have anything against pinot grigio. From some of the
thorough, painstaking producers in Alto Adige and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, pinot
grigio can be a delight. But much of it is mundane. Why should anybody who
cares about what they eat and drink settle for familiar and icy rather than
something full of character?
The wine industry has no problem with that sort of unconscious drinking.
It feeds sales and increases profits. Hence it promotes the notion of “starter
wines,” mediocre bottles that help ease newcomers past the shock of transition
until they are ready to try the better stuff. Nonsense. The idea is merely a
rationalization for selling millions of bottles of mass-market junk wines.
Skip the insipid wines. Go right to good bottles. Discriminate.
End of rant. The good news is, the parallel universe of provocative
Greek wines, made primarily from this trio of little-known grapes, is very much
an available reality, offering a wonderful trove of wines that can be
stimulating, even riveting, and rarely boring. A recent wine panel tasting of
Greek whites from the 2011 and 2012 vintages affirmed the quality and value of
these wines. For the tasting, Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Laura
Maniec, proprietor of Corkbuzz Wine Studio in Greenwich Village, and Levi
Dalton, a sommelier and host of the “I’ll Drink to That” series of podcasts.
Tasting Report
The
panel tasted white wines from Greece
1.Argyros Santorini
2.Domaine Sigalas
3.Gaia
4.Costa Lazaridi
5.Semeli
6.Kitma Pavlidis
7.Gaia
8.Domaine Sigalas
9.Argyros
10.Kir-Yianni
