Nowadays, the modern consumer can purchase an extensive spectrum of beverage products, from waters and milks, juices and carbonated drinks, to energy and alcohol-based drinks. These drinks are produced and consumed in nearly every corner of the world. Making the right choice of what to drink is important and instrumental to our lifestyle and health; however, under the present competitive environment, it can be confusing. Consequently, if you could only drink one beverage for the rest of your life (not including water), which one would you choose? To those of us who drink wine daily, the question seems senseless. Yet, at some point in our lives, we must have raised the question: why drink wine?
The desirability of wine lies in its diversity and rich history. A good wine is full of character and is capable of providing a very different experience and a wholesome sensual delight. Drinking wine is a pleasure as well as a challenge. It tickles your physical senses and provokes you to unwind the subtle hints of taste and smell. There is more in that glass than meets the eye – or the palate. Wine is a unique commodity. Its production predates recorded history, as does the discovery of the healthful benefits of wine, now largely attributed to the antimicrobial activity of ethanol.
Throughout antiquity, the conversion of grapes into wine was considered a gift from the gods and the best wines were thus reserved for the elite of society. The image of wine as a beverage of the affluent persists even today. Wine was also one of the first commodities to be bartered by early civilizations engaged in international trade. Then, as now, the most successful wine producers were those who grasped the market forces of supply and demand, and whose products met the prevailing definition of quality.
Wine comes from a 100% natural resource – grapes. Every drop of liquid filling so many bottles has been drawn out of the ground by the roots of a vine. Harvesting is the first of many strange and – despite modern research – mysterious processes which make wine not only the most delicious, but the most fascinating drink in the world. Beer is probably older. Coke sells more. However, only wine has a divine sponsorship. The Greeks said that Dionysus, god of wine, gave mortals the grape to keep us happy. The Bible says that Noah, presumably sick of water, planted the first vineyard, and that Jesus turned water into wine to save the day at the wedding in Cana .
The world of wine has a rich history and influential cultural fingerprint in many countries. Take a look at both the historical and cultural impact that wine has made on countries around the world. Fermented beverages have been preferred over water throughout the ages. Some have said wine was the primary agent for the development of Western civilization. When humans became civilized, fermented beverages, which we know as wine, contributed as a social lubricant, aided in the economy, boosted trade, soothed cross-cultural interactions and became an integral part of Christian and Judaic ceremonies. We continue to live out our past civilization by drinking wine that is made from a humble plant that had its origins in the ancient Near East. Once reserved for the upper class, wine has been enjoyed since 6,000 B.C. and continues to grow in popularity worldwide.
Few other consumables have the vocabulary and the body of literature that wine has inspired. The more you read about wine, study it and involve yourself in it, the better it becomes. Wine is an inexhaustible subject and even a little learning can go a long way to enhancing your enjoyment of what is in your glass. It is an everyday, positive, stimulating, friendly beverage. The intangible cultural, soulful, artistic influence of wine is evident and undeniable throughout the old world. Just as food sustains the body, wine can revive and stimulate the mind.
Wine grapes are an exceptionally diverse fruit. Each variety has its own preferences and characteristics. Each grape variety offers a unique colour, size, skin thickness and acidity. Wines are grouped as red or white, but in fact there are many nuances of hues, tones and shades in the appearance of this multifaceted drink. These characteristics are often influenced by the area in which the grapes are grown. A wine’s taste and bouquet are largely affected by the soil and weather conditions of its vintage year. Because weather and growing conditions vary from place to place and year to year, vintage became linked to origin, especially in terms of fine wines. Basically, the vintage refers to the year in which the grapes were harvested. This notion also hints at both the weather conditions in which the grapes grew and the quality of these grapes. An experienced wine maker knows how to blend and choose from the many grape varieties to produce a high quality wine.
There are many types of grapes, many methods of production, a great variety of storage conditions and an overwhelming number of personal preferences. Each of these factors has an impact on how long a wine should be held before drinking. In general, wines gain complexity and lose fruitiness as they age. Tannic red wines also mellow and become softer as time goes by. Once a wine reaches maturity, it will usually plateau before slowly going downhill. Different grapes make wines with different ageing profiles. As an example, most Cabernet Sauvignons will age for longer periods than most Merlots.
Although all wines are made from a fruit, few can be described as fruity. Common aromas include those of different fruits, flowers, spices, and herbs. While different people will detect different things in the same wine, there are characteristic aromas generally found in specific varieties. Each grape variety has its own character, which is expressed in the fruit of the finished wine. The degree and complexity of the fruit is what determines its quality. Many famous regions rely on multiple grape varieties blended together to make their best wines. The overall “taste” of a wine is a combination of smells and flavours. The human palate is sensitive to different tastes; some dislike the pungent aromas of a fruity wine, others are sensitive to acidity, and others still cannot stand tannins.
It is widely acknowledged that wine promotes dialogue, even if it’s only about the wine. Wine easily evokes intellectual conversation, its role in history, in art, in religion. A vintage wine brings up memories of what happened in that particular year. Probably wine’s most redemptive quality is its demand to be sipped slowly with something to eat. Wine has been used for centuries as an accompaniment to food. In many countries, drinking wine is automatically part of a meal, and there is no better time than having something to eat with your family or friends to the accompaniment of a good red or white wine that matches and compliments the taste of the food.
The wealth of cultural diversity has brought with it a variety of food traditions, which have become part of the western lifestyle. Taste and flavours unknown only 15 years ago are now part of the everyday food scene. So it is important to select a wine that best compliments your meal and does not overshadow the taste of your food. It goes without saying that it is far better to choose a quality wine, rather than one which is mass produced and cheap.
If you are used to heavy, spicy food, you will probably prefer robust wines. As you sip, the wine should taste better and better due to oxidation, and the meal in turn will taste better since the natural acidity of wine begs for food. Wine is a very unpretentious beverage. What is always present with wine is a lot of stimulated conversation and smiles, and always respect and appreciation for a good vintage.
Wine is the ideal drink for any celebration, whether it be to commemorate the arrival of a New Year, a toast to the bride and groom or simply opening a bottle to celebrate success. At the signing of many important treaties in Europe , champagne has been featured at the event. Since WWII, champagne sales have climbed steadily upwards. Today, champagne is consumed by more people than at any other time in history.
Modern societies have come a long way in our understanding and appreciation of wine. Today, wines are better than ever and consumption is on the rise. People of all ages are getting comfortable with wine. However, wine is not a drink just for the purpose of get-togethers, celebrations and enjoyment. It is also healthy to drink wine! The concept of wine and health was linked based on the lower incidence of the disease in France , due to their habit of taking wine as part of their daily eating habits. It is worth looking into the details of how wine can improve health. Wine contains sugar, and many essential vitamins and minerals which help to keep your body in good condition. There are studies which have proved that red wine has the capability of reducing the risk of heart attack. It can prevent blood from clotting because it has anti-coagulation properties. The sugar content provides calories and so you feel energetic after drinking a glass of wine. One glass of red or white wine gives you a hundred calories.
Let us begin by examining some of the benefits of wine. Red wines are a rich source of biologically active compounds known as phytochemicals, which are chemicals found in plants. In particular, phytochemicals called polyphenols are found in red wine. Two polyphenols in red wine are catechins and resveratrol, both of which are antioxidants. Antioxidants are any substance that reduces oxidative damage. Resveratrol not only provides antioxidant protection but also helps to protect LDL cholesterol against oxidation, promotes optimal cardiovascular health, and supports healthy ageing and normal cell growth. Catechin, on the other hand, appears to play an important role in reducing the risk of heart disease. Another antioxidant called Saponin is also found in red wine, which is easily absorbed by the body and apparently offers protective benefits for the heart. Antioxidants may possibly reduce the risks of cancer and age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Furthermore, the stomach is better able to digest red meat in the presence of red wine. Researchers have discovered that red wine helps the stomach remove potentially harmful substances inherent in red meats which are released during digestion. Those who have poor digestion can help their system by drinking wine, which has the capability of producing gastric juices that aid in food absorption. Red wine also has an element which can fight off herpes. Scientists in Spain have found evidence that drinking red wine helps prevent colds from developing. It is particularly useful in cold countries as it helps to keep the body warm.
The list of wine’s benefits is long – and getting more surprising all the time. Already well-known as heart-healthy, wine in moderation might even help you lose weight, reduce forgetfulness, boost your immunity, and help prevent bone loss. Alcohol appears to boost oestrogen levels; the hormone seems to slow the body’s destruction of old bone more than it slows the production of new bone.
Alcohol raises levels of the “good” cholesterol, HDL, which provides protection against heart disease. In addition, moderate drinkers (as opposed to non-drinkers or heavy drinkers), are more likely to be at a healthy weight, get seven to eight hours of sleep at night and exercise regularly, according to a well documented survey. Though wine has positive aspects to it, this does not mean you should increase your regular drinking dose or start to have wine immediately. Drink wine in moderation. Stick to the regular dose of wine – up to three glasses per day, but remember its positive health effects.
Health benefits aside, something much more than that makes millions of people choose wine over any other beverage. Above all these, perhaps the best reason is that among all alcoholic beverages, wine is the most natural partner for food. Elevating the quality of our meal and taking time to enjoy it is a simple way to infuse our daily lives with joy. Most wine lovers drink wine for the total experience – the way a great bottle can envelop your senses, even overload them. Who among the wine drinking populous can honestly say that at one time or another, a bottle hasn’t just made you sit back and go wow, all that from a grape?
Don’t think you have to know everything about wine to appreciate or serve it. The best wine professionals readily admit that no matter how much they learn about wine, there is always a lot more to discover. Everyone has to start somewhere.
Whether you consider yourself a wine connoisseur or just enjoy an occasional glass of white or red, you’ll discover that a wine appeals to the most discriminating palate. So next time you are at dinner with a few friends, skip that beer or mixed drink and open up your senses to a bottle of health – and remember, moderation leads to appreciation.
Wine News and Information
· Throughout the centuries, the basic elements of wine glass design – the clear bowl, stem and foot – have not changed a great deal. But in recent years, scientific innovation and subtle modifications in shape, size, and construction have fine-tuned and improved the performance of stemware tremendously. Much of this advancement can be attributed to Claus Josef Riedel who, in the 1950s, discovered that the shape, volume, rim diameter, finish, and thickness of the glass determine how aromas strike the nose and where precisely the wine touches the palate. If you consider the map of the tongue’s taste receptors – sweet on the tip, tart on the sides, savoury in the middle, and bitter in the back – it makes sense that directing the flow of wine to a particular spot might enhance the tasting experience. It is well documented that the bowl’s size and curvature alter the arrangement of aromas, which are layered according to their density and specific gravity, and influence the order in which these aromatics are experienced. The shape can also highlight particular flavours, such as fruit or spice, by directing them to the appropriate taste receptors, a principle that’s also effective in minimizing a certain grape’s less desirable qualities. Bowl width also increases the wine’s rate of oxidation, allowing the tannins to integrate better and for the complexity to be drawn out. That’s why wide-bowled stemware is ideal for red wines that require plenty of air to reveal their full flavour.
However, the pressing question is: Do you need to purchase a different glass for each grape? That depends on your budget, usage, and cupboard space, but professional opinions on the topic vary greatly. Some encourage oenophiles (wine lovers) to invest in an array of top-quality stemware in order to maximize the flavours of the wines they purchase. The best advice one can offer to someone in doubt is that while it’s important to use quality glassware to help focus aromas and flavours, you really don’t need a specific glass to enjoy your wine. The use of a good glass with a deep bowl which allows for swirling, without spilling, is sufficient.
· Collectors of rare and expensive wines often become victims or suspect that they are purchasing fakes without noticing. To combat counterfeiting, wineries are combining the ancient art of winemaking with cutting-edge technology. They’re putting tiny radio-frequency ID tags inside labels, embedding microscopic material into the ink printed on the bottles, and even carbon dating wine to ensure authenticity. It’s an arms race with the counterfeiters, who are attracted to the industry because of the soaring prices of rare wines at auction. In the past five years, prices of the 100 most sought-after wines have increased almost threefold, according to fine-wine index. “It’s almost like the housing boom,” said Neil Ivey, a sales manager at Payne Security in Washington, a firm that develops anti-counterfeiting measures for the wine industry.
· A group of prominent British wine critics has joined the fight to reverse the construction of a four-lane motorway which threatens to destroy the world’s best Riesling vineyards. Veteran champions of Riesling such as Hugh Johnson, author of The World Atlas of Wine, and Jancis Robinson, who have helped to give the white wine an international standing, are calling on German politicians to halt construction at the site along the Mosel river which they say could ruin the region’s unique microclimate, which is highly sensitive to change. Vintners say the construction will damage the vines by blocking the sunlight and affecting the delicate system of water distribution. The Mosel valley is considered ideal for the late-ripening grape because its brittle slate slopes soak up the sun’s warmth by day and release it by night. In a delicately-balanced system which has served the wine-growing region well for over 2,000 years, the slate stores moisture in winter while, in summer, it drips down the slope to vines.
· India will become the first eastern Asian nation to join the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV). Speaking in Verona , OIV Director General Federico Castellucci confirmed that the OIV was “looking forward to welcoming India as a full member in a few months”. He acknowledged Subhash Arora, director of the Indian Wine Academy , as having played an important role in this initiative. India currently has no laws or structure concerning grape growing and wine production.
Monolithos Monthly News
Vineyard management is a very important part of the grape growing process. There are many pests and diseases that vineyards contend with during the growing season.
Wet, damp weather makes vineyards most prone to disease. Effective spray application is critical for the control of seasonal diseases such as powdery mildew. A number of leaves are often removed to increase sun and wind exposure, which reduces mildew and bunch rot while enhancing spray penetration into the canopy. The vineyard manager must be careful not to remove too many leaves as grapes can also be damaged by direct sunlight, particularly in hot countries. Sprayed areas should be monitored to assess the efficacy of chemical application.
Controlling grape yield is also a very important part of vineyard management. Wines made from extremely productive vineyards that are not controlled properly often have diluted flavours and aromas. However, economics can also dictate the quest for the optimal grape yield. Throughout the grape growing and wine production process, there is an inverse relationship between quality and quantity.
At the winery, most wines of 2009 vintage have been bottled and are available for tasting. We are particularly pleased with this year’s rose and white wines (still and sparkling) as well as the Shiraz . If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to call him at 25-816212 or 99-165995. We thank you for your continued support, and would remind you of the words of the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei:
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.”
Monday, 3 May 2010
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Cyprus Wine Blog - April 2010
This article focuses on the evolution of the wine production in Cyprus in recent years. Wine is, in simple terms, a beverage – but it is also an industry, a culture and a valuable natural resource. Any attempt to study the production and commercialisation of wine has to look into a multitude of subjects and sources because it is truly an interdisciplinary topic, potentially linking geography (climate, soil, and topography), sociology, history and economics.
The island of Cyprus , situated in the far eastern Mediterranean Sea, is the third largest in the Mediterranean (9,250 sq km). Cyprus sits precariously at the cross-roads between Asia and Europe , a strategic location that has heavily influenced its 10,000-year history. It has Syria and Lebanon to the east, Turkey to the north and Egypt to the south. The physical setting for life on the island is dominated by two mountain ranges and the central plain of Messaoria they encompass. The Troodos mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The island has a maximum length of about 220 km from Cape Andreas in the northeast to the western extremity of the island.
In ancient times, Cyprus was known as the home of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, and an island of a fine sweet wine called “nama”. The arrival of Greeks on the island dates back to 1400-1300 BC. Through the years, Cyprus has been ruled by the Phoenicians (1050-750 BC), the Assyrians (709-669 BC) and the Egyptians, who took over the island until 546 BC when they were replaced by a Persian domination. The Greeks and the Ptolemy (descendants of Alexander the Great) ruled from 475-50 BC, then came the Romans (58 BC-330 AD), the Byzantines (330-1191 AD), the Francs (Lusignan Rule, 1192–1489), and the Venetians (1489-1571). Turkey captured the island in 1571 and ruled it until the British took over in 1878. It remained a British colony until the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960. Although having successfully assimilated the assortment of influences it has received, Cyprus preserves its predominantly Hellenic character and heritage, deeply rooted in the island since the 2nd Millennium BC .
Winemaking in Cyprus goes back 4,000 years. It is interesting to note that during the Ptolemaic empire rule, import duties were imposed on imported wine in order to protect the local production. Homer, Pliny, Seneca and others referred to and praised the Cypriot sweet wine in their writings. Marcus Antonio even gave Cyprus as a present to Cleopatra because of its wine! In the 11th century AD during the crusades, the sweet Cypriot wine became famous under the name of “Commandaria”, symbolizing its geographic origin. The name comes from the area called “Commanderie” where the Knights of St. John established their headquarters. The method of producing this wine had already been documented by Hesiod (8th century BC), the ancient Greek writer. Later, with the domination of Venice in the Mediterranean Sea, the wines of Cyprus were transported to Venice , re-jarred (instead of rebottled) and sold to the rest of Europe . Britain administered the island from 1878-1960, and during that time, a very popular sherry-style wine was produced. In fact, Cyprus was until recently the fifth largest supplier of wines to the British market.
The island’s location has ensured that it played a full part in Mediterranean history, and its essentially Greek culture is enriched by many other influences from the various rulers. The most important modern influence has probably been that of the British, whose stay has contributed substantially to the island’s current Western business environment.
Today, Cyprus is a modern country that effortlessly marries European culture with ancient enchantment. The Cyprus Republic is recognized by the UN and all countries of the world (except Turkey ) and has a population of around 800,000. The main cities are Nicosia (the capital and business centre), Limassol, Pafos, Larnaca, Famagusta and Kyrenia. All, apart from the capital, are coastal cities. Cyprus successfully completed the EU accession process, and in May 2004, the island joined the European Union.
Cyprus has all the necessary ingredients for producing and marketing its wines, labelled with a specific appellation based on its unique natural elements, local characteristics and traditions, which are most commonly known in the wine world as “terroir”. The notion implies that grapes grown in designated places can imprint a distinctive mark of quality on the wines produced. While this has somewhat to do with the “earth” in terms of the soil composition, grade and sunlight exposure of the land in question, “terroir” also encompasses the microclimate of that area and other factors, including local winemaking practices and traditions.
It is not by mere chance that Cyprus has this long tradition in grape growing. The reasons are apparent: vines have been cultivated in their natural climate and soil environment for centuries. The weather is an obvious determinant of grape production. Many climatic elements influence grape quality and yield. For example, spring frost and high winds during flowering could destroy the production. Hail at any time during the growing season could damage the grapes. Rain or high humidity during summer could result in rot. Rain at harvest will dilute the juice and affect the quality of the wine.
A Mediterranean climate generally has mild winters and long warm summers. Cyprus has an intense Mediterranean climate with strong seasonal characteristics with respect to weather, temperature and rainfall. Summers are hot from mid-May to mid-September, and winters are mild from November to mid-March, but this generalization must be modified by consideration of altitude which lowers temperatures by about 5ºC per 1,000 metres, and of marine influences which give cooler summers and warmer winters near most of the coastline, especially on the south and west coasts. Lowland inland areas during summer can be up to 10ºC warmer than the coast, and the mountains are usually cooler.
Rainfall is geographically unevenly distributed, with maximum precipitation falling on the island’s two mountainous terrains and minimum precipitation observed in the eastern plain. The average annual total precipitation increases from approximately 450 millimetres on the lowlands to nearly 1,100 millimetres at the top of the central Troodos massif, which, with a height of almost 2,000 metres, plays an important part in the meteorology of Cyprus . Snow occurs rarely in the coastal areas but falls frequently every winter on ground above 1,000 metres, usually starting in December and ending by the month of April. Although snow cover is not continuous during the coldest months, it may lie to considerable depths for several weeks, especially on the northern slopes of Troodos.
Cyprus has a fragile ecosystem with very limited water resources. Until recently, all water resources available in Cyprus came from rainfall. Humidity may be described as average during winter days and at night throughout the year. Near midday in summer, it is very low with values on the central plain usually a little over 40% and occasionally as low as 15%. However, humidity near the coast could climb from 65% to 95%. In summer, differences in temperature between sea and land are built up daily in predominant periods of clear skies. These cause considerable sea and land breezes which regularly penetrate far inland reaching the capital, Nicosia , and often bring a welcome reduction of temperature and also an increase in humidity. Generally, summer is a season of high temperatures and almost negligible rainfall. Higher altitudes offer cooler summers which allow the slower ripening of grapes, giving them a full flavour. A stable sunny weather during the last two months before harvest is critical as far as the quality of the grapes is concerned. The winters are mild and the gentle winds and breezes check the frosts, dispel the fogs and protect the vines and grapes from fungus diseases.
The vineyards of Cyprus are mostly on the southern and western slopes of the Troodos mountain range. The wine producing areas are situated mainly in the Limassol district in the south and Pafos district in the west. The vineyards are generally on terraced, hilly slopes, with an altitude of 250m to 1,300m above sea level (apart from the Madari area which has an altitude of 1,600m above sea level).
Although there are over 21,000 vineyards in Cyprus , covering a total of over 17,000 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 m²), only 5% of the vineyards exceed two hectares in size. Most of the vines form low bushes close to the earth. This allows for minimal water needs and offers shade to the fruit during summer. Apart from providing grape juice to produce wine, the significance of tending vines in these infertile, stony and sloping soils on the hills and mountains of Cyprus in fact prevented soil erosion and, for centuries, supported the local population, enabling them to stay and work in the countryside especially in these deprived areas. Table grapes, which mature early, thrive on the fertile coastal plains stretching from Limassol to Pafos.
The majority of Cyprus soils are calcareous (chalk and limestone) sedimentary formations. The soil of the Pafos district is generally more fertile than the lower Limassol district. Higher up on the Troodos mountain range there are volcanic formations. The same type of soil can be found in the Pitsilia region. Calcareous soil is typically cool in temperature and provides good water retention and drainage.
In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned into small fields, wine grape growing has written history and determined the distribution of human settlements. We know that limestone and chalk have important effects. What vines like best is poor and well drained soil. The viticulture areas of Cyprus have soil that drains freely yet maintains good moisture retention, which is important for the development of the grapes during the long, dry summer period.
The element of soil relates both to the composition and the intrinsic nature of the vineyard soils, such as fertility, drainage and the ability to retain heat. It is acknowledged worldwide that the best vineyards tend to have poorer, less fertile, thinner and better drained soil. Under such conditions, the soil acts as a natural brake on the vigour of the vine; this in turn helps control the amount of grapes the vine produces, giving a more concentrated flavour. Slopes facilitate drainage, getting more direct sunshine and therefore better fruit ripeness. Shallow, rocky, calcareous soil, combined with the local microclimate, produces wines of intense flavour and aroma. Altitude can also play an important role in determining the quality of grapes. In Cyprus , vines are cultivated in some of the highest altitudes (1,500m) in the world.
Factors such as soil, climate, viticulture and wine making techniques all affect wine quality, however grape variety is the easiest to understand and notice. Cyprus has 17 distinct indigenous vine varieties. Most of these varieties are only found in specific areas of the island. The principal indigenous grapes mostly diffused on Cyprus are: Xynisteri, Maratheftiko and Mavro (local black), Ofthalmo, Lefkada, Muscat of Alexandria, Yiannoudhi, Maroucho, and Flouriko. Other white grape varieties used for vinification are Promara, Spourtiko, Kanela, Morokanela and Katomylitiko. However, their production is so small that they are used primarily for blends.
Cyprus is one of the very few places in the world that has avoided the phylloxera and continues to be free of it. The local vines are planted using own-rooted vines (“franc de pied”) without grafting, that is self-sown plants of the original European “vitis vinifera”, thus retaining their classic organoleptic characteristics. The vines are commonly spaced in 2mx2m formations and trained as bushes at a height of 0,5m.
Xynisteri is the prevailing white grape and Mavro is the most cultivated red grape variety on the island. Maratheftiko or Bambakada is the most promising red grape variety of Cyprus , due to its qualities. Even though Maratheftiko has great potential as a variety, it has not been preferred for cultivation due to its low yield. Newer varieties that have been introduced to Cyprus since the 1950’s include Palomino, Chardonnay, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz , Carignan, Mataro , Alicante Bouchet, Grenache, etc.
In the decades that followed, vines became one of the larges crops in Cyprus with regard to land use and value of agricultural exports. The number of grape varieties increased from a couple of dozen to over 200, however not all of them have been found suitable for local conditions, so the lion’s share during this period was provided by the local varieties “Mavro” (75%) and “Xynisteri” (15%).
During most of the last century, wine production has remained in the hands of four major wineries on the island. The “Big Four”, namely KEO, LOEL, SODAP and ETKO, produced large volumes of blended wines. Unfortunately, 94% of the production – because of its good body – was exported in bulk to England , France , Germany , the Soviet Union and other European countries and was used to reinforce the importers’ local wines, or was distilled into industrial alcohol. Only 6% of the wine was left on the island in bottles with the original brand. Consequently, although Cyprus has over 5,000 years of winemaking history, it was not on the map of the wine-producing countries in the 20th century.
Fortunately, in the early 1980s, the Cyprus Government – as part of its drive to revive rural industries – allowed the establishment of small enterprises to operate local wineries in the grape growing regions. An ambitious programme was initiated on the replanting of old vineyards with noble varieties of lower yield and higher quality grapes. Particular emphasis was placed in exploiting the potentials of indigenous grape varieties, with special characteristics for the production of wines which were capable of offering the consumer a new sensory experience. In addition to the indigenous grapes, the following international varieties are cultivated producing either pure or mixed wines: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan Noir, Syrah, Grenache Noir, Mataro , Merlot, Chardonnay, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling.
A great deal of continuous research has been carried out in order to produce wines that reach the international standards with a local flavour. Wines made of these varieties are an interesting expression of the Cypriot “terroir”. Since the late 1980s, Cypriot wine making has shifted from large quantity but low quality fast consumption wines for export to non-sophisticated markets to quality wine production. Cyprus wine making is currently going through a renaissance. The majority of the vine growers have now realized that a “great wine” is born in the vineyard and, therefore, they avoid high yields, select the appropriate grape varieties and cultivate them the correct way. Most wineries have their own vineyards, or exercise control over the quality of their raw materials by supervising the vineyard cultivation and harvesting.
With the change of agricultural law towards viticulture, there are now more than 40 independent wine producers in Cyprus producing approximately 15% of the annual wine production. Their contribution to the diversification of style and development of new wines has been immense. Each year brings advances in quality and the introduction of exciting new wines using local as well as famous international grape varieties. The latter provides a standard against which the abilities of Cypriot wine can be compared, whilst the blends with traditional varieties preserve the local identity that has survived through the ages.
Perhaps the most important challenge that will influence the Cyprus wine production during the 21st century is the joining of Cyprus to the EU, which offers easier access to the wider European countries, but also opens up the home market to increased competition. Since its accession to the EU, Cyprus has undergone significant structural reforms that have transformed its economic landscape. Monopolies and subsidies have been abolished, trade and interest rates have been liberalised, and price controls and investment restrictions have been lifted. These factors, along with the country’s strategic location, favourable tax incentives, educated work force, outstanding telecommunications, excellent banking services, developed legal infrastructure and air links to all important destinations have made Cyprus an ideal base for companies’ international business operations.
The world wine production averages approximately 275 million hl per annum. The total EU production on the world wine market amounts to about 175 million hl and occupies a leading position in the worldwide market. It accounts for 65% of production and 57% of global consumption. The EU remains the world’s largest wine producer, consumer, exporter and importer. Total EU-27 wine production in 2008/09 dropped one percent due to adverse weather, mainly in France and Spain . EU exports in 2008 declined 5% in volume, but grew 11%. Within the EU, the production of France , Italy and Spain represents, on average, 75%-80% of the total. France , Italy and Spain are not only the EU but the world’s top producers by volume. The list of EU producers continues with Germany in fourth place, followed by Portugal , Hungary , Greece , Austria , Slovenia , the Czech Republic , Slovakia and Cyprus . Currently Cyprus produces more wine per person than any other country in the world. However, ironically the country also has one of the lowest per capita wine consumption rates in Europe . For this reason, the Cypriot wine industry is largely dependent on foreign markets.
The European Commission wants to halt the declining trend in wine production by spending more on “building quality and competitiveness” and less on storage of wine lakes and distillation of surplus wine into industrial alcohol. According to the new EU strategic plan on wine, the following schemes have been approved:
• Introduction of incentives for wine makers to grub up vineyards
• Elimination of subsidies for distillation of surplus wine
• Introduction of more user-friendly labelling systems
• Modernisation of wine making practices
In response to the new challenges from the EU and the competition of the New World, the Cyprus wine industry is currently pursuing a strategy based the following axles.
First, much of the wine industry’s success depends on both human and natural competitive advantages which can contribute to the production of high quality wines with local personality using modern technology. Cyprus is blessed with a number of distinct advantages ideal for viticulture. It has a typical Mediterranean climate characterized by reliable warm sunny summers and mild winters, a variety of local microclimates which together with hilly terrain of high altitudes with numerous slope variations and types of soil result in a range of wines with great individuality. Increased vineyard plantings of premium grape varieties, especially in regions of altitude higher than 600m, provide the necessary quantities to accommodate future growth and production of premium wines from new cultivations is already underway.
Second, Cyprus is acknowledged as having the oldest appellation in the world in the name of Commandaria. Consequently, capitalising on the long tradition in winemaking and establishing the appropriate image and reputation of Cyprus wines is essential in regaining its place in the highly competitive world of wine. Cyprus is developing an appellation system.
Third, Cyprus, being a major tourist destination, is required to promote wine education among those involved in providing services to the tourist industry i.e. hotels, restaurants, taverns, wine bars, tour operators, the local consumer and even visitors and tourists. Thus, they will be able to appreciate wine of better quality, maximising the advantages of wine in capturing complementary business growth in tourism, food and lifestyle areas.
Fourth, the rather low consumption of wine by the local population offers additional opportunities for growth using appropriate educational and marketing strategies. Nowadays, wine is often preferred because of its low alcohol content. In the right quantities, it helps people relax and create a good mood without any negative consequences of drunkenness. In addition, there is wide variety of tastes to combine the right wine with each meal. Because of its soft and refined taste, wine keeps the balance between various cuisines and does not surpass them.
Finally, Cyprus is clearly an island with a lot going for it and the potential to make some truly exciting and unique wines. However, Cyprus is a small country and will never be able to compete with volume, so the strategic objective is to create the image of a boutique, wine-producing island with exclusive quality wines. Modern advances in science and technology, affecting both vine growing and wine making, ensure that the local wine industry is undergoing enormous improvement and both large and small local wineries are investing heavily in new technology and oenological equipment. There is a strong emphasis on quality wine making using state-of-the-art wineries and grape varieties adapted to local conditions. New bottling lines, stainless steel tanks, filtration systems and oak barrels are fast becoming the industry norms, resulting in enhanced purity, freshness and higher and consistent quality. Cyprus produces more than 30 million bottles of wine per annum, and is ranked number 37 in wine producing countries. The sector, without doubt, is an important segment of the local economy through agriculture, work jobs, tourism and export. Although there is a considerable lack of awareness of Cyprus wines on the international market, there has been growing recognition among professionals that Cyprus is well on the track of producing quality wines. The Cyprus wines participate in international and local competitions, judged and appreciated by the best wine tasters in the world.
Agriculture has always played a significant role in the Cypriot economy. In the past agriculture employed more than 45% of the labour force, although its contribution to the national income has never surpassed 18%. However, Cyprus has slowly transformed itself from an exporter of agricultural products and minerals to a major tourist destination and services centre. The foundations of tourism in Cyprus were already laid down back in the early 1960s. In 2007, over 2.4 million tourists visited Cyprus , mainly from Western, Central and Northern Europe . During the last few decades an alternative form of tourism, agro-tourism, was developed with the restoration and enhancement of Cypriot houses in rural areas for tourist use. This opened up an entirely new market for Cyprus targeting those who wish to experience a quieter, nature-friendly holiday away from the crowded hotels. With their natural environment, local character and traditional architecture, Cyprus ’ villages offer tourists a unique experience focusing on the traditions, culture, history and rural lifestyle. Furthermore, the Cyprus Tourist Organisation has recently organised and designated several wine routes where visitors can see the vines and vineyards, admire the various natural landscapes, and enjoy the local production. In all of the wine making regions, visitors can sample the local delicacies in villages, wineries, monasteries, and shops, each place offering its own brand of charm. Three of the most interesting are the Kilada Diarizou wine route, the Krasochoria Lemesou wine route, and the famed Koumandaria wne route.
There are at least 10 major reasons why should anyone would visit the wine routes, i.e. to: 1) taste wine, 2) gain wine knowledge, 3) experience the wine setting, (e.g. meet the winemaker; tour cellars & vineyards), 4) to be in a rural setting (beauty of vineyards; learn about farming, agro-tourism), 5) match food and “wine and culinary” tourism, 6) have fun (wine festivals and events), 7) enjoy wine culture (romance and elegance), 8) appreciate the architecture and art, 9) learn about the “green” aspects and eco-tourism, and 10) enjoy the health aspects of wine.
Today, wine is more popular that ever, consisting of an industry that stretches across the globe. Vineyards exist on many continents, from North America to Europe to Asia to Australia . The wine market has also changed with time as consumer preferences change, and the fight between quality and quantity influences the production and organization styles of the different companies that produce wine around the world. Furthermore, in the world market there is a change in consumer preferences towards the Mediterranean diet. The growing healthy image of wine being part of this diet has distanced it from other alcoholic drinks, thus pioneering wine as a universal first choice lifestyle beverage.
Although economics are vital to every industry, the wine industry sets itself apart by emphasizing the importance of the role of wine in societies, as well as its symbolic significance, to be of the utmost importance. The complexity of wine growing, the wide range of grapes and its vast, long history make it an interesting topic. It is widely accepted that the world is on the brink of an era of massive change which will render the current society unrecognisable. However, these trends favour wine provided wine producers can meet the future consumers’ demand for individualised, customised products which are natural, environmentally friendly and healthy. The future of wine belongs to products which reflect the local tradition and culture. The combined talents of the large companies and the smaller regional wineries are giving the Cyprus wine industry a bright and prosperous future.
Wine News and Information
Over the past few years, the US wine market has shown a healthy growth, expanding 20% between 2004 and 2009, but last year, the recession brought this growth to a sharp halt. Wine sales fell 3.2% during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, however the latest statistical figures suggest the market is on back on track. While the growth figures themselves may be back to pre-recession levels, the market could now follow a new direction. Penny-pinching consumers who switched down to cheaper wines may permanently change their perceptions of value wines. Domestic wines have proven to be somewhat recession-proof as unpretentious, economy-priced wines are fuelling recent sales. This may be good news for US wine growers, as well as manufacturers of boxed wines that generally fall into the value bracket. A recent survey found that nearly one in five respondents would drink boxed wine at home but would not serve it to guests. To grow the boxed wine category further, the industry will have change consumer perceptions and eliminate status anxiety.
A company created by film director Francis Ford Coppola (known for film classics like Apocalypse Now and the Godfather) is suing a packaging company over allegations that its wine bottles and screw caps were faulty. Coppola is also the creator of a lifestyle company called Francis Ford Coppola Presents (FFCP). The company has filed a lawsuit in a Californian court alleging that the packaging company is responsible for ruining 55,000 cases of wine by supplying faulty bottles and screw caps. Apparently many of the bottles were chipped, bent or uneven, and that caps were all too often unsuitable for use.
Responding to the allegations, an executive of the packaging company said that their General Manager had the “entire responsibility” of the agreement, but has now left his position to set up his own company. He added that the glass bottles and screw caps in question were manufactured in China “in accordance, agreement and collaboration with FFC executives”.
Monolithos Monthly News
Maintaining a vineyard is a year-round labour of love for grape farmers. In March the soil must be properly prepared, including cultivation and the addition of fertilizer (10-52-10 or 20-20-20) which give the vines a needed boost. The roots of the vine crops are close to the surface of the soil, so it is important not to cultivate too deeply or too close to the plants. Cultivation must be just deep enough to cut the weeds off below the surface of the soil, and this continues for as long as possible without injuring the vines, usually when the vines begin to spread between the rows. When cultivation is no longer possible, the large weeds are pulled by hand. Cultivation should be started as soon as the soil is dry enough in spring and continue until the end of April. Frequent shallow cultivation will kill weeds before they become a problem.
Bottling is the main activity in the winery. Last year’s vintage is cleared, filtered and stabilised, ready for bottling. Most of the 2008 production has been bottled and aged and ready for tasting. If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995. We thank you for your continued support.
Take care and remember:
“Wine rejoices the heart of man, and joy is the mother of all virtues.”
The island of Cyprus , situated in the far eastern Mediterranean Sea, is the third largest in the Mediterranean (9,250 sq km). Cyprus sits precariously at the cross-roads between Asia and Europe , a strategic location that has heavily influenced its 10,000-year history. It has Syria and Lebanon to the east, Turkey to the north and Egypt to the south. The physical setting for life on the island is dominated by two mountain ranges and the central plain of Messaoria they encompass. The Troodos mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The island has a maximum length of about 220 km from Cape Andreas in the northeast to the western extremity of the island.
In ancient times, Cyprus was known as the home of Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, and an island of a fine sweet wine called “nama”. The arrival of Greeks on the island dates back to 1400-1300 BC. Through the years, Cyprus has been ruled by the Phoenicians (1050-750 BC), the Assyrians (709-669 BC) and the Egyptians, who took over the island until 546 BC when they were replaced by a Persian domination. The Greeks and the Ptolemy (descendants of Alexander the Great) ruled from 475-50 BC, then came the Romans (58 BC-330 AD), the Byzantines (330-1191 AD), the Francs (Lusignan Rule, 1192–1489), and the Venetians (1489-1571). Turkey captured the island in 1571 and ruled it until the British took over in 1878. It remained a British colony until the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960. Although having successfully assimilated the assortment of influences it has received, Cyprus preserves its predominantly Hellenic character and heritage, deeply rooted in the island since the 2nd Millennium BC .
Winemaking in Cyprus goes back 4,000 years. It is interesting to note that during the Ptolemaic empire rule, import duties were imposed on imported wine in order to protect the local production. Homer, Pliny, Seneca and others referred to and praised the Cypriot sweet wine in their writings. Marcus Antonio even gave Cyprus as a present to Cleopatra because of its wine! In the 11th century AD during the crusades, the sweet Cypriot wine became famous under the name of “Commandaria”, symbolizing its geographic origin. The name comes from the area called “Commanderie” where the Knights of St. John established their headquarters. The method of producing this wine had already been documented by Hesiod (8th century BC), the ancient Greek writer. Later, with the domination of Venice in the Mediterranean Sea, the wines of Cyprus were transported to Venice , re-jarred (instead of rebottled) and sold to the rest of Europe . Britain administered the island from 1878-1960, and during that time, a very popular sherry-style wine was produced. In fact, Cyprus was until recently the fifth largest supplier of wines to the British market.
The island’s location has ensured that it played a full part in Mediterranean history, and its essentially Greek culture is enriched by many other influences from the various rulers. The most important modern influence has probably been that of the British, whose stay has contributed substantially to the island’s current Western business environment.
Today, Cyprus is a modern country that effortlessly marries European culture with ancient enchantment. The Cyprus Republic is recognized by the UN and all countries of the world (except Turkey ) and has a population of around 800,000. The main cities are Nicosia (the capital and business centre), Limassol, Pafos, Larnaca, Famagusta and Kyrenia. All, apart from the capital, are coastal cities. Cyprus successfully completed the EU accession process, and in May 2004, the island joined the European Union.
Cyprus has all the necessary ingredients for producing and marketing its wines, labelled with a specific appellation based on its unique natural elements, local characteristics and traditions, which are most commonly known in the wine world as “terroir”. The notion implies that grapes grown in designated places can imprint a distinctive mark of quality on the wines produced. While this has somewhat to do with the “earth” in terms of the soil composition, grade and sunlight exposure of the land in question, “terroir” also encompasses the microclimate of that area and other factors, including local winemaking practices and traditions.
It is not by mere chance that Cyprus has this long tradition in grape growing. The reasons are apparent: vines have been cultivated in their natural climate and soil environment for centuries. The weather is an obvious determinant of grape production. Many climatic elements influence grape quality and yield. For example, spring frost and high winds during flowering could destroy the production. Hail at any time during the growing season could damage the grapes. Rain or high humidity during summer could result in rot. Rain at harvest will dilute the juice and affect the quality of the wine.
A Mediterranean climate generally has mild winters and long warm summers. Cyprus has an intense Mediterranean climate with strong seasonal characteristics with respect to weather, temperature and rainfall. Summers are hot from mid-May to mid-September, and winters are mild from November to mid-March, but this generalization must be modified by consideration of altitude which lowers temperatures by about 5ºC per 1,000 metres, and of marine influences which give cooler summers and warmer winters near most of the coastline, especially on the south and west coasts. Lowland inland areas during summer can be up to 10ºC warmer than the coast, and the mountains are usually cooler.
Rainfall is geographically unevenly distributed, with maximum precipitation falling on the island’s two mountainous terrains and minimum precipitation observed in the eastern plain. The average annual total precipitation increases from approximately 450 millimetres on the lowlands to nearly 1,100 millimetres at the top of the central Troodos massif, which, with a height of almost 2,000 metres, plays an important part in the meteorology of Cyprus . Snow occurs rarely in the coastal areas but falls frequently every winter on ground above 1,000 metres, usually starting in December and ending by the month of April. Although snow cover is not continuous during the coldest months, it may lie to considerable depths for several weeks, especially on the northern slopes of Troodos.
Cyprus has a fragile ecosystem with very limited water resources. Until recently, all water resources available in Cyprus came from rainfall. Humidity may be described as average during winter days and at night throughout the year. Near midday in summer, it is very low with values on the central plain usually a little over 40% and occasionally as low as 15%. However, humidity near the coast could climb from 65% to 95%. In summer, differences in temperature between sea and land are built up daily in predominant periods of clear skies. These cause considerable sea and land breezes which regularly penetrate far inland reaching the capital, Nicosia , and often bring a welcome reduction of temperature and also an increase in humidity. Generally, summer is a season of high temperatures and almost negligible rainfall. Higher altitudes offer cooler summers which allow the slower ripening of grapes, giving them a full flavour. A stable sunny weather during the last two months before harvest is critical as far as the quality of the grapes is concerned. The winters are mild and the gentle winds and breezes check the frosts, dispel the fogs and protect the vines and grapes from fungus diseases.
The vineyards of Cyprus are mostly on the southern and western slopes of the Troodos mountain range. The wine producing areas are situated mainly in the Limassol district in the south and Pafos district in the west. The vineyards are generally on terraced, hilly slopes, with an altitude of 250m to 1,300m above sea level (apart from the Madari area which has an altitude of 1,600m above sea level).
Although there are over 21,000 vineyards in Cyprus , covering a total of over 17,000 hectares (1 hectare = 10,000 m²), only 5% of the vineyards exceed two hectares in size. Most of the vines form low bushes close to the earth. This allows for minimal water needs and offers shade to the fruit during summer. Apart from providing grape juice to produce wine, the significance of tending vines in these infertile, stony and sloping soils on the hills and mountains of Cyprus in fact prevented soil erosion and, for centuries, supported the local population, enabling them to stay and work in the countryside especially in these deprived areas. Table grapes, which mature early, thrive on the fertile coastal plains stretching from Limassol to Pafos.
The majority of Cyprus soils are calcareous (chalk and limestone) sedimentary formations. The soil of the Pafos district is generally more fertile than the lower Limassol district. Higher up on the Troodos mountain range there are volcanic formations. The same type of soil can be found in the Pitsilia region. Calcareous soil is typically cool in temperature and provides good water retention and drainage.
In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned into small fields, wine grape growing has written history and determined the distribution of human settlements. We know that limestone and chalk have important effects. What vines like best is poor and well drained soil. The viticulture areas of Cyprus have soil that drains freely yet maintains good moisture retention, which is important for the development of the grapes during the long, dry summer period.
The element of soil relates both to the composition and the intrinsic nature of the vineyard soils, such as fertility, drainage and the ability to retain heat. It is acknowledged worldwide that the best vineyards tend to have poorer, less fertile, thinner and better drained soil. Under such conditions, the soil acts as a natural brake on the vigour of the vine; this in turn helps control the amount of grapes the vine produces, giving a more concentrated flavour. Slopes facilitate drainage, getting more direct sunshine and therefore better fruit ripeness. Shallow, rocky, calcareous soil, combined with the local microclimate, produces wines of intense flavour and aroma. Altitude can also play an important role in determining the quality of grapes. In Cyprus , vines are cultivated in some of the highest altitudes (1,500m) in the world.
Factors such as soil, climate, viticulture and wine making techniques all affect wine quality, however grape variety is the easiest to understand and notice. Cyprus has 17 distinct indigenous vine varieties. Most of these varieties are only found in specific areas of the island. The principal indigenous grapes mostly diffused on Cyprus are: Xynisteri, Maratheftiko and Mavro (local black), Ofthalmo, Lefkada, Muscat of Alexandria, Yiannoudhi, Maroucho, and Flouriko. Other white grape varieties used for vinification are Promara, Spourtiko, Kanela, Morokanela and Katomylitiko. However, their production is so small that they are used primarily for blends.
Cyprus is one of the very few places in the world that has avoided the phylloxera and continues to be free of it. The local vines are planted using own-rooted vines (“franc de pied”) without grafting, that is self-sown plants of the original European “vitis vinifera”, thus retaining their classic organoleptic characteristics. The vines are commonly spaced in 2mx2m formations and trained as bushes at a height of 0,5m.
Xynisteri is the prevailing white grape and Mavro is the most cultivated red grape variety on the island. Maratheftiko or Bambakada is the most promising red grape variety of Cyprus , due to its qualities. Even though Maratheftiko has great potential as a variety, it has not been preferred for cultivation due to its low yield. Newer varieties that have been introduced to Cyprus since the 1950’s include Palomino, Chardonnay, Semillon, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz , Carignan, Mataro , Alicante Bouchet, Grenache, etc.
In the decades that followed, vines became one of the larges crops in Cyprus with regard to land use and value of agricultural exports. The number of grape varieties increased from a couple of dozen to over 200, however not all of them have been found suitable for local conditions, so the lion’s share during this period was provided by the local varieties “Mavro” (75%) and “Xynisteri” (15%).
During most of the last century, wine production has remained in the hands of four major wineries on the island. The “Big Four”, namely KEO, LOEL, SODAP and ETKO, produced large volumes of blended wines. Unfortunately, 94% of the production – because of its good body – was exported in bulk to England , France , Germany , the Soviet Union and other European countries and was used to reinforce the importers’ local wines, or was distilled into industrial alcohol. Only 6% of the wine was left on the island in bottles with the original brand. Consequently, although Cyprus has over 5,000 years of winemaking history, it was not on the map of the wine-producing countries in the 20th century.
Fortunately, in the early 1980s, the Cyprus Government – as part of its drive to revive rural industries – allowed the establishment of small enterprises to operate local wineries in the grape growing regions. An ambitious programme was initiated on the replanting of old vineyards with noble varieties of lower yield and higher quality grapes. Particular emphasis was placed in exploiting the potentials of indigenous grape varieties, with special characteristics for the production of wines which were capable of offering the consumer a new sensory experience. In addition to the indigenous grapes, the following international varieties are cultivated producing either pure or mixed wines: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Carignan Noir, Syrah, Grenache Noir, Mataro , Merlot, Chardonnay, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling.
A great deal of continuous research has been carried out in order to produce wines that reach the international standards with a local flavour. Wines made of these varieties are an interesting expression of the Cypriot “terroir”. Since the late 1980s, Cypriot wine making has shifted from large quantity but low quality fast consumption wines for export to non-sophisticated markets to quality wine production. Cyprus wine making is currently going through a renaissance. The majority of the vine growers have now realized that a “great wine” is born in the vineyard and, therefore, they avoid high yields, select the appropriate grape varieties and cultivate them the correct way. Most wineries have their own vineyards, or exercise control over the quality of their raw materials by supervising the vineyard cultivation and harvesting.
With the change of agricultural law towards viticulture, there are now more than 40 independent wine producers in Cyprus producing approximately 15% of the annual wine production. Their contribution to the diversification of style and development of new wines has been immense. Each year brings advances in quality and the introduction of exciting new wines using local as well as famous international grape varieties. The latter provides a standard against which the abilities of Cypriot wine can be compared, whilst the blends with traditional varieties preserve the local identity that has survived through the ages.
Perhaps the most important challenge that will influence the Cyprus wine production during the 21st century is the joining of Cyprus to the EU, which offers easier access to the wider European countries, but also opens up the home market to increased competition. Since its accession to the EU, Cyprus has undergone significant structural reforms that have transformed its economic landscape. Monopolies and subsidies have been abolished, trade and interest rates have been liberalised, and price controls and investment restrictions have been lifted. These factors, along with the country’s strategic location, favourable tax incentives, educated work force, outstanding telecommunications, excellent banking services, developed legal infrastructure and air links to all important destinations have made Cyprus an ideal base for companies’ international business operations.
The world wine production averages approximately 275 million hl per annum. The total EU production on the world wine market amounts to about 175 million hl and occupies a leading position in the worldwide market. It accounts for 65% of production and 57% of global consumption. The EU remains the world’s largest wine producer, consumer, exporter and importer. Total EU-27 wine production in 2008/09 dropped one percent due to adverse weather, mainly in France and Spain . EU exports in 2008 declined 5% in volume, but grew 11%. Within the EU, the production of France , Italy and Spain represents, on average, 75%-80% of the total. France , Italy and Spain are not only the EU but the world’s top producers by volume. The list of EU producers continues with Germany in fourth place, followed by Portugal , Hungary , Greece , Austria , Slovenia , the Czech Republic , Slovakia and Cyprus . Currently Cyprus produces more wine per person than any other country in the world. However, ironically the country also has one of the lowest per capita wine consumption rates in Europe . For this reason, the Cypriot wine industry is largely dependent on foreign markets.
The European Commission wants to halt the declining trend in wine production by spending more on “building quality and competitiveness” and less on storage of wine lakes and distillation of surplus wine into industrial alcohol. According to the new EU strategic plan on wine, the following schemes have been approved:
• Introduction of incentives for wine makers to grub up vineyards
• Elimination of subsidies for distillation of surplus wine
• Introduction of more user-friendly labelling systems
• Modernisation of wine making practices
In response to the new challenges from the EU and the competition of the New World, the Cyprus wine industry is currently pursuing a strategy based the following axles.
First, much of the wine industry’s success depends on both human and natural competitive advantages which can contribute to the production of high quality wines with local personality using modern technology. Cyprus is blessed with a number of distinct advantages ideal for viticulture. It has a typical Mediterranean climate characterized by reliable warm sunny summers and mild winters, a variety of local microclimates which together with hilly terrain of high altitudes with numerous slope variations and types of soil result in a range of wines with great individuality. Increased vineyard plantings of premium grape varieties, especially in regions of altitude higher than 600m, provide the necessary quantities to accommodate future growth and production of premium wines from new cultivations is already underway.
Second, Cyprus is acknowledged as having the oldest appellation in the world in the name of Commandaria. Consequently, capitalising on the long tradition in winemaking and establishing the appropriate image and reputation of Cyprus wines is essential in regaining its place in the highly competitive world of wine. Cyprus is developing an appellation system.
Third, Cyprus, being a major tourist destination, is required to promote wine education among those involved in providing services to the tourist industry i.e. hotels, restaurants, taverns, wine bars, tour operators, the local consumer and even visitors and tourists. Thus, they will be able to appreciate wine of better quality, maximising the advantages of wine in capturing complementary business growth in tourism, food and lifestyle areas.
Fourth, the rather low consumption of wine by the local population offers additional opportunities for growth using appropriate educational and marketing strategies. Nowadays, wine is often preferred because of its low alcohol content. In the right quantities, it helps people relax and create a good mood without any negative consequences of drunkenness. In addition, there is wide variety of tastes to combine the right wine with each meal. Because of its soft and refined taste, wine keeps the balance between various cuisines and does not surpass them.
Finally, Cyprus is clearly an island with a lot going for it and the potential to make some truly exciting and unique wines. However, Cyprus is a small country and will never be able to compete with volume, so the strategic objective is to create the image of a boutique, wine-producing island with exclusive quality wines. Modern advances in science and technology, affecting both vine growing and wine making, ensure that the local wine industry is undergoing enormous improvement and both large and small local wineries are investing heavily in new technology and oenological equipment. There is a strong emphasis on quality wine making using state-of-the-art wineries and grape varieties adapted to local conditions. New bottling lines, stainless steel tanks, filtration systems and oak barrels are fast becoming the industry norms, resulting in enhanced purity, freshness and higher and consistent quality. Cyprus produces more than 30 million bottles of wine per annum, and is ranked number 37 in wine producing countries. The sector, without doubt, is an important segment of the local economy through agriculture, work jobs, tourism and export. Although there is a considerable lack of awareness of Cyprus wines on the international market, there has been growing recognition among professionals that Cyprus is well on the track of producing quality wines. The Cyprus wines participate in international and local competitions, judged and appreciated by the best wine tasters in the world.
Agriculture has always played a significant role in the Cypriot economy. In the past agriculture employed more than 45% of the labour force, although its contribution to the national income has never surpassed 18%. However, Cyprus has slowly transformed itself from an exporter of agricultural products and minerals to a major tourist destination and services centre. The foundations of tourism in Cyprus were already laid down back in the early 1960s. In 2007, over 2.4 million tourists visited Cyprus , mainly from Western, Central and Northern Europe . During the last few decades an alternative form of tourism, agro-tourism, was developed with the restoration and enhancement of Cypriot houses in rural areas for tourist use. This opened up an entirely new market for Cyprus targeting those who wish to experience a quieter, nature-friendly holiday away from the crowded hotels. With their natural environment, local character and traditional architecture, Cyprus ’ villages offer tourists a unique experience focusing on the traditions, culture, history and rural lifestyle. Furthermore, the Cyprus Tourist Organisation has recently organised and designated several wine routes where visitors can see the vines and vineyards, admire the various natural landscapes, and enjoy the local production. In all of the wine making regions, visitors can sample the local delicacies in villages, wineries, monasteries, and shops, each place offering its own brand of charm. Three of the most interesting are the Kilada Diarizou wine route, the Krasochoria Lemesou wine route, and the famed Koumandaria wne route.
There are at least 10 major reasons why should anyone would visit the wine routes, i.e. to: 1) taste wine, 2) gain wine knowledge, 3) experience the wine setting, (e.g. meet the winemaker; tour cellars & vineyards), 4) to be in a rural setting (beauty of vineyards; learn about farming, agro-tourism), 5) match food and “wine and culinary” tourism, 6) have fun (wine festivals and events), 7) enjoy wine culture (romance and elegance), 8) appreciate the architecture and art, 9) learn about the “green” aspects and eco-tourism, and 10) enjoy the health aspects of wine.
Today, wine is more popular that ever, consisting of an industry that stretches across the globe. Vineyards exist on many continents, from North America to Europe to Asia to Australia . The wine market has also changed with time as consumer preferences change, and the fight between quality and quantity influences the production and organization styles of the different companies that produce wine around the world. Furthermore, in the world market there is a change in consumer preferences towards the Mediterranean diet. The growing healthy image of wine being part of this diet has distanced it from other alcoholic drinks, thus pioneering wine as a universal first choice lifestyle beverage.
Although economics are vital to every industry, the wine industry sets itself apart by emphasizing the importance of the role of wine in societies, as well as its symbolic significance, to be of the utmost importance. The complexity of wine growing, the wide range of grapes and its vast, long history make it an interesting topic. It is widely accepted that the world is on the brink of an era of massive change which will render the current society unrecognisable. However, these trends favour wine provided wine producers can meet the future consumers’ demand for individualised, customised products which are natural, environmentally friendly and healthy. The future of wine belongs to products which reflect the local tradition and culture. The combined talents of the large companies and the smaller regional wineries are giving the Cyprus wine industry a bright and prosperous future.
Wine News and Information
Over the past few years, the US wine market has shown a healthy growth, expanding 20% between 2004 and 2009, but last year, the recession brought this growth to a sharp halt. Wine sales fell 3.2% during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, however the latest statistical figures suggest the market is on back on track. While the growth figures themselves may be back to pre-recession levels, the market could now follow a new direction. Penny-pinching consumers who switched down to cheaper wines may permanently change their perceptions of value wines. Domestic wines have proven to be somewhat recession-proof as unpretentious, economy-priced wines are fuelling recent sales. This may be good news for US wine growers, as well as manufacturers of boxed wines that generally fall into the value bracket. A recent survey found that nearly one in five respondents would drink boxed wine at home but would not serve it to guests. To grow the boxed wine category further, the industry will have change consumer perceptions and eliminate status anxiety.
A company created by film director Francis Ford Coppola (known for film classics like Apocalypse Now and the Godfather) is suing a packaging company over allegations that its wine bottles and screw caps were faulty. Coppola is also the creator of a lifestyle company called Francis Ford Coppola Presents (FFCP). The company has filed a lawsuit in a Californian court alleging that the packaging company is responsible for ruining 55,000 cases of wine by supplying faulty bottles and screw caps. Apparently many of the bottles were chipped, bent or uneven, and that caps were all too often unsuitable for use.
Responding to the allegations, an executive of the packaging company said that their General Manager had the “entire responsibility” of the agreement, but has now left his position to set up his own company. He added that the glass bottles and screw caps in question were manufactured in China “in accordance, agreement and collaboration with FFC executives”.
Monolithos Monthly News
Maintaining a vineyard is a year-round labour of love for grape farmers. In March the soil must be properly prepared, including cultivation and the addition of fertilizer (10-52-10 or 20-20-20) which give the vines a needed boost. The roots of the vine crops are close to the surface of the soil, so it is important not to cultivate too deeply or too close to the plants. Cultivation must be just deep enough to cut the weeds off below the surface of the soil, and this continues for as long as possible without injuring the vines, usually when the vines begin to spread between the rows. When cultivation is no longer possible, the large weeds are pulled by hand. Cultivation should be started as soon as the soil is dry enough in spring and continue until the end of April. Frequent shallow cultivation will kill weeds before they become a problem.
Bottling is the main activity in the winery. Last year’s vintage is cleared, filtered and stabilised, ready for bottling. Most of the 2008 production has been bottled and aged and ready for tasting. If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995. We thank you for your continued support.
Take care and remember:
“Wine rejoices the heart of man, and joy is the mother of all virtues.”
Monday, 1 March 2010
Cyprus Wine Blog - March 2010 - History of Cyprus Wine
This month we continue our journey to the wine history of Cyprus , focusing our attention on “The second era of the History of Cyprus Wines (1878-1980)”.
Wine, more than any food or beverage, has played a significant role in the history of mankind and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Cyprus history. Historical evidence establishes wine being produced in the eastern Mediterranean area between 5000-4000 B.C. Cyprus is considered to be among the first countries to practise viticulture. Homer, the legendary epic poet, and Pindaros paid tribute to Cyprus wines. Cypriot wines are also mentioned in the Bible in the verse of King Solomon’s “Song of Songs”: “My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi”. Modern excavations have established that during the Hellenic (Classical) Age, there existed a wealthy and remarkable society whose prosperity seems to have originated from and depended on viticulture, wine production and wine trading. In those days, Cypriots worshipped Dionysus (Latin Bacchus), son of Zeus and Semele, god of the vineyard and of wine, and Aphrodite (Latin Venus), goddess of love and beauty.
Wine has been made and sold in Cyprus for a long time. Cypriot wine was so popular that the Pharaohs of Egypt, the ancient Greeks and later the Romans placed orders for it. During the Classical period (mid 4th century B.C.), the Cypriot city-kingdoms became the centres of the wine trade between the Aegean islands, the Eastern Mediterranean countries and Egypt, as is evident from the number of cargo ships found lying on the seabed close to the island’s coast. The mosaics at the House of Dionysus, god of wine, in Paphos – a private house with over 40 rooms, believed to have belonged to a member of the Roman nobility – depict the colourful history of the Cyprus vine and its mythological origins. Cyprus wines were superb and in great demand in olden days and were an essential part of official banquets. At such banquets, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra are said to have toasted each other with it. Eventually, Mark Anthony gave Cyprus to Cleopatra, the legendary Queen of Egypt, as an ultimate token of love.
The Apostle Paul, accompanied by Barnabas and Mark the Evangelist (Barnabas’ kinsman), came to Cyprus in 45 A.D. to spread Christianity, which, by the end of the 4th century, had spread throughout the island. The Orthodox Church became administratively independent, or autocephalous (self-governing), and the Archbishop of Cyprus has been the head of Cyprus autocephalous church since then. In the Christian religion, God is presented as the keeper of a vineyard and the church as his vine. In the rite of the Holy Communion, the faithful drink sweet wine in representation of Christ’s blood. For the Orthodox community, wine has been – and still is – considered an essential adjunct to birth, baptism, marriage and death. During the Byzantine period, the old Eastern Mediterranean wine trade routes became active once more in the trading of wine for the purposes of religion, as the sweet wine of Cyprus was in great demand.
In the centuries that followed, Cyprus , like all neighbouring countries, suffered greatly from Arab invasions. In 1191, Richard the Lionheart in his Crusade captured Cyprus . He married the fair Berengaria in the chapel of Limassol Castle and celebrated his victory and his achievement with the sweet wine which later came to be known in Europe and to the entire civilized world as “Commandaria”. Richard ceded the island to Guy de Lusignan, the French “King of Jerusalem”, who became the founder of the Lusignan dynasty which ruled Cyprus for three centuries (1192-1489). Thus, 1192 marked the beginning of a new era in the social and political history of Cyprus .
The Lusignan period, together with the Venetian rule (1489-1570), constitute the Frankish era in the history of Cyprus . During the Lusignan reign, a feudal system was set up and a large number of settlers arrived in Cyprus . Among these settlers were the Knights of St. John, the ecclesiastical military order of St. John (the Baptist) of Jerusalem . These knights had their administrative headquarters – the Commanderie or Commandaria – in a castle west of Limassol, known today as “ Kolossi Castle ”. The castle was situated in a large fertile area of land with extensive plantations of wheat, cotton, sugar cane and vineyards. The knights of St. John , who knew the secrets of good wine-making, took the local know-how and upgraded its production techniques, improving its quality and elevating it to the wine in greatest demand at the time. Commandaria acquired world fame, for the knights traded it with enviable success and at considerable profit for themselves. The knights administered an extensive area of vineyards comprising a total of 40 villages situated within the Limassol District. It is remarkable that this very same wine survived over the centuries and is still available to us now, made in essentially the same way and from the very same places at the mountain villages of Limassol.
During the Middle Ages, the island was considered a stepping stone to the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean . This was especially true of the 13th and 14th centuries, when the coasts of Cyprus were the seaports most frequently visited by merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, ambassadors and soldiers. Because of its exceptional quality, Commandaria was much in demand in the trading centres of the Mediterranean . In Venice , for example, it could be imported free of tax because it was categorized as a tonic.
In the 16th century, the Venetians considered the expansionist policies of the Sultan of Constantinople as a threat to the Republic’s dominions. However, a peace treaty between the two powers provided that all Ottoman subjects should be free to enter Venetian lands as long as they did not cause any upheaval. Therefore, every time the Turkish captains appeared on the coasts of Cyprus , the Venetian authorities were obliged to offer them at least six silk cloths of different colours and 200 silver coins. The sultan and other high officials of the Ottoman Empire often used to send requests to the Venetian government of Cyprus , asking for some of the island’s renowned sweet wine.
The other more striking, account – which is well founded in history – is that Selim II (who ruled from 1566 to 1574), known also as “Selim the Sot”, a notorious drunkard, sent an army to capture Cyprus as the stocks of his favourite Cyprus wine needed replenishing. He got his wine, but only after massacring 30,000 Christians in Nicosia and Famagusta . The west’s reaction to the invasion of Cyprus was unprecedented. A massive and well-appointed fleet was formed under the command of Don Juan of Austria, a bastard son of Charles V. He sighted the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (Navpaktos) on the Gulf of Patra , in western Greece . In the ensuing carnage, up to 200 of the Turkish ships were sunk or captured, as against just 15 of the League’s galleys, the Turks’ first major defeat in two centuries and the largest number of sinking in any sea battle. The naval museum in Madrid has a splendid gallery devoted to the victory of Lepanto. However, the Turks rebuilt their fleet within a year, and held on to Cyprus when the war ended in 1573. In another story, Shakespeare’s Othello fictionally led the attack of the Venetians to retake Cyprus in 1571. According to historic sources, Selim died in 1574 after drinking a bottle of Cyprus wine and broke his skull on entering the bath.
The growth of Cyprus in the field of viticulture and wine-producing ended in the latter half of the 16th century with the Turkish Ottoman occupation. During virtually this entire 300-year period, wine producing would receive little attention because the taxes imposed on farmers had become prohibitive to wine production and many vineyards were abandoned. However, from the writing of several visitors, we can deduce that even under those difficult for viticulture times, vine cultivation in Cyprus continued to provide a living for those residing in the mountain villages. In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned in small fields, wine grape growing wrote history and determined the distribution of human settlements. Furthermore, in the slopes of the Troodos Mountains and close to the Orthodox monasteries, the cultivation of the vines and the production of Commandaria continued in order to meet the demand as a Holy Communion wine.
Perhaps the most important stage in the history of Cyprus , both in international politics and the world of wine, took place in 1878 when British control over the island replaced the Turkish Ottoman rule. Under the British, taxation changes on wine production were removed and resulted in starting the local wine making industry once again. British occupation brought a revival in the winemaking industry. Taxation rules changed and the local cottage industry began to expand. In 1893, the first modern winery was built in Zanatzia near Limassol by the well-known wine family of Haggipavlu. With presses and fermentation tanks of stone, the new winery was set to flourish. Around the same time, an English family, the Chaplins, built a large wine-making plant at Pera Pedi, just below Platres and started making wine in fairly large quantities. Both these wineries would have made dry wines, from the local grapes “Xynisteri” (white) and “Mavro” red, which, as I suggested in my first article, were from vines that had been in Cyprus for many hundreds if not thousands of years.
By the start of the 19th century, Britain was the world’s leading industrial power and dominated international commerce. The 19th century was a turning point for wine in many respects. During the early 19th century, when the British were fighting the Napoleonic Wars, they were unable to get a steady supply of wine from France , and instead turned to Portugal . Port became the favoured wine in England during this time, and the English dominated the wine industry in Portugal .
By the mid 19th century, the wine industry of France enjoyed “Golden Age” period of prosperity. A new class of consumers, the bourgeoisie, emerged as a strong market for wine and other culinary products. Although the 19th century is considered to be the golden age of wines for the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions, it was not without tragedy. From the 1860s onwards, vineyards throughout Europe and other parts of the world were devastated by a North American aphid called Phylloxera vastatrix, an insect that attacks and destroys the roots of the vines. Millions of vines had to be uprooted and burned as a result of the spread of the tiny, vine-killing bug. The problem could only be fixed by grafting European vines onto the stem of the American vine, which was resistant to Phylloxera. The Phylloxera disaster affected European wine production for several decades, but it gave a boost to production elsewhere including the New World countries. The wines of the New World began challenging those of the Old World in the 19th century.
The first wave of expansion for Cypriot wines came with the misfortunes of the European viticulture sector. The cursed Philloxera beetle has never reached Cyprus . This meant that the indigenous vines grew undisturbed on their own rootstocks, often for 100 or even 150 years. As a consequence, demand for Cyprus grapes and wines, coupled with the relatively high prices offered, resulted in a mini boom for the industry. Further demand early in the 20th century came from local consumption and from the regional forces of Britain and France in the Middle East .
By 1883, the French vineyards had recovered from the Phylloxera blight and the French government imposed duties and discouraged imports to protect their own vineyards. In 1889, the Cypriots sent a delegation to London to lobby for a reduction in import duties on Cyprus wines, but without success. But the local industry proceeded undeterred. These were the years of the British Empire, with a strong presence in the Middle East , especially after World War I, from 1918 onwards. So the wine and spirits industry of Cyprus prospered with exports to all the places where the British were present: Palestine , Egypt , Sudan , even to the Arabian Gulf, as well as to the French in Lebanon and Syria .
As the new century started, there were the two up-to-date wine-making plants in Cyprus , the Chaplin family’s at Pera Pedhi and the Haggipavlu’s at Zanadzia, both in the Limassol district. Sales of products based on the grape grew steadily. In 1927, a group of Cypriot businessmen formed KEO (Cyprus Wine Corporation) with the objective of expanding modern wine production. In 1928, KEO purchased the Chaplin family winery and shortly afterwards started the construction of a second at Mallia village. As their wines came on to the market, a tacit agreement existed between KEO and Haggipavlu – that one would concentrate on wine and the other on brandy. This came to an end in 1935, when KEO opened a brandy distillery in Limassol, and Haggipavlu countered by purchasing the largest privately owned winery in Limassol and developing it into ETKO.
In 1943, following a strike, a breakaway group of trade union members from ETKO created a cooperative, LOEL. This was the first winery in Cyprus that was organised in the form of public company having thousands of shareholders, who in their majority were viticulturists. In the initial stages of its operation, LOEL produced spirits and fortified wines as the only quality products that could be produced from the indigenous grape varieties of those times – Mavro, Xynisteri and Muscat of Alexandria. Cyprus produced quality cheap wine and spirits (mainly in the form of Cyprus brandy) and the big four companies prospered as a result.
In 1947, a team of forward-looking vine growers decided to organize their grape own production, relieving themselves from the insecurities of the troubled times on the island, and created the great wine Co-operative, SODAP (the Vine Products Co-operative Marketing Union Ltd.) that united 10,000 families from 144 vine growing villages. From the beginning, SODAP was supported by the whole vine growing community, as it played the role of the stabilizing factor in the wine sector. SODAP owns and operates two wineries, one in Limassol and the other in Paphos, the two main vine producing areas of Cyprus . These “big four” wine producers (a term widely used to refer to KEO, ETKO, SODAP and LOEL) dominated the industry scene and survive to date. For most of the 20th century, the Cyprus wine industry focused on the production of inexpensive table wines mostly exported in bulk.
For more than 30 years, the Cyprus wine industry was “The Big Four”: KEO, ETKO, SODAP and LOEL, who produced very similar lines of wines, spirits, liqueurs and other by-products of grape juice. They were essentially businesses whose function was the utilisation of a basic raw material (grape juice) to make commercially viable products to be sold around the world in one form or another. The object was to produce profits or dividends for the shareholders, whether they were family members, grape growers or investors, large or small. The four major wineries on the island – ETKO (privately owned with 800,000 bottle production), KEO (a public company with four million bottles), LOEL (a public company selling two million bottles) and SODAP (a cooperative with 2½ million bottle sales) once controlled almost all the production.
Despite World War II, the Cyprus viticulture industry prospered. Although not a lot was done for it by the British, markets were available because of the British (and French) presence in the Middle East , which created a demand for wines and spirits produced on the island. Development resulted from the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of the Cypriots running the Big Four. Good cheap brandy and other distilled products could always command a market, as could good grape juice, either in its natural form or fermented. So the sales executives of KEO, ETKO, LOEL and SODAP began to travel internationally, looking for opportunities. All over the world Cyprus sold its vine products – concentrated grape juice, pure alcohol for translation into vodka and other spirits, Sangria and other fruit-juice laced wines, at the same time developing its growing local market as the tourism industry began its upward surge. There were boom years and the industry prospered making literally hundreds of grape-based drinks: juices, concentrates, table wines, aperitif and dessert wines and vermouths. In 1954, 75 new varieties of vine were introduced to the island. Although there are only four main producers today, 10,000 families are involved in viticulture today. During the years that followed, both industry and government encouraged the introduction of several grape varieties from Italy , Spain and France .
Fortified wine, that is to say wine strengthened and stabilised by the addition of brandy or other spirit, was already popular in northern markets and the Cypriots had started making “Cyprus Sherry” in 1937. But it was in the late 1940’s that it really started to take off. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the world was demanding low-priced products and Cyprus supplied them – dry, medium and sweet “Cyprus Sherry”, table wines sold in bulk to Britain (where it turned up in bottles with brand names like “Hirondelle”) and other countries, by the million litres. Wine, or “plonk”, to give it its vernacular title, was the party drink and you took us much as you could buy for a pound or two. “Cyprus Sherry” became a household commodity in Britain , whilst export to the Eastern European countries soared.
Incredibly cheap, EMVA Cream and many other brands started sweeping into the UK market – not yet the wine-loving country it is today, but one that consumed millions of gallons of “sticky” port or sherry, or imitations thereof, at Christmas and other celebratory times. By the 1960’s, Britain was consuming 13.6 million litres of Cyprus wines, half the island’s production, mostly as sweet sherry. A British market research study of fortified wines in 1978 showed Emva cream was the leading Cyprus sherry in terms of brand recognition, and second in that market only to Harveys’ Bristol Cream. The island became the UK ’s third leading wine supplier behind France and Spain . A major factor was that Cyprus Sherry was more affordable than Spanish Sherry, as British taxation favoured alcoholic beverages with an alcoholic content below the 15½%-18% bracket. This competitive advantage was lost a few years later with the re-banding of the alcohol content taxation. The fortified wine market also began to shrink as a whole, due to a change in consumer taste. As a result, Cyprus sherry sales in the UK fell from their peak in the early 1970’s by some 65% by the mid 1980’s. The final blow came when the EC ruled that as of January 1996, only fortified wine from Jerez could assume the title of sherry.
The other big market for Cyprus wine during the same period was the former Soviet bloc. Large volumes of low quality, mass produced, blended wines were sold to the eastern block with the cooperative wine producers (LOEL and SODAP) taking the lion’s share. This market began to dry up in the 1980’s and vanished altogether with the fall of communism. Comment on the industry’s mass production tactics came in a report by “The Times” in 1968, noting “the end of an underwater pipeline off the coast of Limassol linking to tankers taking on not gas or oil, but wine – 100 tons an hour of it – destined for about 40 countries throughout the world”.
Over the years, the number of grape varieties increased from a couple of dozen to over 200, however not all of them have been found suitable for local conditions, so the lion’s share during this period was provided by the local varieties “Mavro” (75%) and “Xynisteri” (15%). Newer varieties that have been introduced to Cyprus since the 1950’s include Palomino, Chardonnay, Semillon, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz , Carignan, Mataro , Alicante Bouchet, Merlot, Grenache, etc.
The change in the trend of viticulture during the period between 1950 and 1980 is evident from statistical records which give an increase from 83,000 tons in 1950 to 200,000 by 1980.
Most of the Cyprus wines produced in the 20th century were basic table wines of variable quality, from rustic wines that held some charm, to bottles that were not enjoyable to drink. The vineyards of Cyprus are mostly on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountain range near Limassol. The second area is in the south-western part of the island near Paphos. Problems with quality seem to arise because many of the grapes were harvested away from the winery and travel by road in open trucks, thus the grapes were inclined to spoil under these undesirable conditions.
Unfortunately, the winds of rapid change which marked the last few decades brought about a dramatic transformation to the economy as well as the political and cultural life of nations. They also had their impact on wine production and its marketing. The Cyprus wine industry suffered a severe blow from a number of events, the most important of which were: the joining of Britain to the European Union; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the competition for wines of the New World ; the influence of mass media; and the changes in consumers’ diet and life style.
Since independence in 1960, the Government has encouraged the creation of smaller wine enterprises in the grape-growing regions. Today there are more than 40 registered regional wineries, making a major contribution to the diversification of style and the development of new wines.
Moreover, during the past 25 years the situation has substantially changed. Cypriots have planted hundreds of thousands of new vines of famous international varieties and re-discovered old Cyprus types. They have built new or restored old wineries in the hills of Troodos. There are now several small wineries ready to compete in the international market on quality.
To be continued…………..
Wine News and Information
The cork industry is preparing a €20m advertising campaign using cork’s “scientific background” to convince the public of its benefits.
Cork has dozens of applications, including flooring, design and footwear in the automotive industry, the military and pharmaceuticals. It is lightweight and naturally fire-retardant, making it attractive to aircraft manufacturers. Wine corks are natural, bio-degradable, renewable products that have the potential of being recycled into other usable materials.
A cork stopper’s original purpose is to help a vintage reach its peak. They have been used in this way for more than four centuries, a practice said to be set into motion by French monk Dom Perignon. Though many trees have a layer of cork bark, the cork oak tree provides most of the world’s commercial cork (about 50% to 60% is used for wine corks) from trees grown primarily in the Mediterranean region where low rainfall, high humidity and plenty of sunshine provide optimum growing conditions.
As far as bottle closures are concerned, while alternative closures such as screw-caps are growing, cork is losing market share. The cork industry grossed €2.09bn in 2007/8, of which cork closures represented more than €1.7bn, or 80%. In 2009 there were 3.1bn screw-caps sold worldwide, a total which is increasing by 500m a year. The market share for cork closures has gone down from over 90% in the early 1990s to around 75% today. In 2009, 11.3bn units were sold, against 11.7bn in 2008, a decrease of 3.5%.
Monolithos Monthly News
With the flush of spring’s growth, things are moving at a faster rate both in the vineyard and at the winery. Cultivating for weeds or managing the vines for mildew becomes a priority. Timing and knowledge are paramount in the forming of fine wines during this rush of growth and in the maintaining of healthy vineyards.
Early spring is an active time in the wine cellar. Young white and red wines receive their final racking or cold stabilization before bottling. The first wine scheduled to undergo bottling this year is the new 2009 rose. However, all 2008 wines are available for tasting.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
We thank you for your continued support. Take care and remember, when in Cyprus follow the advice:
“Conserve water. Drink more wine.”
Wine, more than any food or beverage, has played a significant role in the history of mankind and nowhere is this seen more clearly than in Cyprus history. Historical evidence establishes wine being produced in the eastern Mediterranean area between 5000-4000 B.C. Cyprus is considered to be among the first countries to practise viticulture. Homer, the legendary epic poet, and Pindaros paid tribute to Cyprus wines. Cypriot wines are also mentioned in the Bible in the verse of King Solomon’s “Song of Songs”: “My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi”. Modern excavations have established that during the Hellenic (Classical) Age, there existed a wealthy and remarkable society whose prosperity seems to have originated from and depended on viticulture, wine production and wine trading. In those days, Cypriots worshipped Dionysus (Latin Bacchus), son of Zeus and Semele, god of the vineyard and of wine, and Aphrodite (Latin Venus), goddess of love and beauty.
Wine has been made and sold in Cyprus for a long time. Cypriot wine was so popular that the Pharaohs of Egypt, the ancient Greeks and later the Romans placed orders for it. During the Classical period (mid 4th century B.C.), the Cypriot city-kingdoms became the centres of the wine trade between the Aegean islands, the Eastern Mediterranean countries and Egypt, as is evident from the number of cargo ships found lying on the seabed close to the island’s coast. The mosaics at the House of Dionysus, god of wine, in Paphos – a private house with over 40 rooms, believed to have belonged to a member of the Roman nobility – depict the colourful history of the Cyprus vine and its mythological origins. Cyprus wines were superb and in great demand in olden days and were an essential part of official banquets. At such banquets, Marc Anthony and Cleopatra are said to have toasted each other with it. Eventually, Mark Anthony gave Cyprus to Cleopatra, the legendary Queen of Egypt, as an ultimate token of love.
The Apostle Paul, accompanied by Barnabas and Mark the Evangelist (Barnabas’ kinsman), came to Cyprus in 45 A.D. to spread Christianity, which, by the end of the 4th century, had spread throughout the island. The Orthodox Church became administratively independent, or autocephalous (self-governing), and the Archbishop of Cyprus has been the head of Cyprus autocephalous church since then. In the Christian religion, God is presented as the keeper of a vineyard and the church as his vine. In the rite of the Holy Communion, the faithful drink sweet wine in representation of Christ’s blood. For the Orthodox community, wine has been – and still is – considered an essential adjunct to birth, baptism, marriage and death. During the Byzantine period, the old Eastern Mediterranean wine trade routes became active once more in the trading of wine for the purposes of religion, as the sweet wine of Cyprus was in great demand.
In the centuries that followed, Cyprus , like all neighbouring countries, suffered greatly from Arab invasions. In 1191, Richard the Lionheart in his Crusade captured Cyprus . He married the fair Berengaria in the chapel of Limassol Castle and celebrated his victory and his achievement with the sweet wine which later came to be known in Europe and to the entire civilized world as “Commandaria”. Richard ceded the island to Guy de Lusignan, the French “King of Jerusalem”, who became the founder of the Lusignan dynasty which ruled Cyprus for three centuries (1192-1489). Thus, 1192 marked the beginning of a new era in the social and political history of Cyprus .
The Lusignan period, together with the Venetian rule (1489-1570), constitute the Frankish era in the history of Cyprus . During the Lusignan reign, a feudal system was set up and a large number of settlers arrived in Cyprus . Among these settlers were the Knights of St. John, the ecclesiastical military order of St. John (the Baptist) of Jerusalem . These knights had their administrative headquarters – the Commanderie or Commandaria – in a castle west of Limassol, known today as “ Kolossi Castle ”. The castle was situated in a large fertile area of land with extensive plantations of wheat, cotton, sugar cane and vineyards. The knights of St. John , who knew the secrets of good wine-making, took the local know-how and upgraded its production techniques, improving its quality and elevating it to the wine in greatest demand at the time. Commandaria acquired world fame, for the knights traded it with enviable success and at considerable profit for themselves. The knights administered an extensive area of vineyards comprising a total of 40 villages situated within the Limassol District. It is remarkable that this very same wine survived over the centuries and is still available to us now, made in essentially the same way and from the very same places at the mountain villages of Limassol.
During the Middle Ages, the island was considered a stepping stone to the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean . This was especially true of the 13th and 14th centuries, when the coasts of Cyprus were the seaports most frequently visited by merchants, pilgrims, missionaries, ambassadors and soldiers. Because of its exceptional quality, Commandaria was much in demand in the trading centres of the Mediterranean . In Venice , for example, it could be imported free of tax because it was categorized as a tonic.
In the 16th century, the Venetians considered the expansionist policies of the Sultan of Constantinople as a threat to the Republic’s dominions. However, a peace treaty between the two powers provided that all Ottoman subjects should be free to enter Venetian lands as long as they did not cause any upheaval. Therefore, every time the Turkish captains appeared on the coasts of Cyprus , the Venetian authorities were obliged to offer them at least six silk cloths of different colours and 200 silver coins. The sultan and other high officials of the Ottoman Empire often used to send requests to the Venetian government of Cyprus , asking for some of the island’s renowned sweet wine.
The other more striking, account – which is well founded in history – is that Selim II (who ruled from 1566 to 1574), known also as “Selim the Sot”, a notorious drunkard, sent an army to capture Cyprus as the stocks of his favourite Cyprus wine needed replenishing. He got his wine, but only after massacring 30,000 Christians in Nicosia and Famagusta . The west’s reaction to the invasion of Cyprus was unprecedented. A massive and well-appointed fleet was formed under the command of Don Juan of Austria, a bastard son of Charles V. He sighted the Ottoman fleet off Lepanto (Navpaktos) on the Gulf of Patra , in western Greece . In the ensuing carnage, up to 200 of the Turkish ships were sunk or captured, as against just 15 of the League’s galleys, the Turks’ first major defeat in two centuries and the largest number of sinking in any sea battle. The naval museum in Madrid has a splendid gallery devoted to the victory of Lepanto. However, the Turks rebuilt their fleet within a year, and held on to Cyprus when the war ended in 1573. In another story, Shakespeare’s Othello fictionally led the attack of the Venetians to retake Cyprus in 1571. According to historic sources, Selim died in 1574 after drinking a bottle of Cyprus wine and broke his skull on entering the bath.
The growth of Cyprus in the field of viticulture and wine-producing ended in the latter half of the 16th century with the Turkish Ottoman occupation. During virtually this entire 300-year period, wine producing would receive little attention because the taxes imposed on farmers had become prohibitive to wine production and many vineyards were abandoned. However, from the writing of several visitors, we can deduce that even under those difficult for viticulture times, vine cultivation in Cyprus continued to provide a living for those residing in the mountain villages. In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned in small fields, wine grape growing wrote history and determined the distribution of human settlements. Furthermore, in the slopes of the Troodos Mountains and close to the Orthodox monasteries, the cultivation of the vines and the production of Commandaria continued in order to meet the demand as a Holy Communion wine.
Perhaps the most important stage in the history of Cyprus , both in international politics and the world of wine, took place in 1878 when British control over the island replaced the Turkish Ottoman rule. Under the British, taxation changes on wine production were removed and resulted in starting the local wine making industry once again. British occupation brought a revival in the winemaking industry. Taxation rules changed and the local cottage industry began to expand. In 1893, the first modern winery was built in Zanatzia near Limassol by the well-known wine family of Haggipavlu. With presses and fermentation tanks of stone, the new winery was set to flourish. Around the same time, an English family, the Chaplins, built a large wine-making plant at Pera Pedi, just below Platres and started making wine in fairly large quantities. Both these wineries would have made dry wines, from the local grapes “Xynisteri” (white) and “Mavro” red, which, as I suggested in my first article, were from vines that had been in Cyprus for many hundreds if not thousands of years.
By the start of the 19th century, Britain was the world’s leading industrial power and dominated international commerce. The 19th century was a turning point for wine in many respects. During the early 19th century, when the British were fighting the Napoleonic Wars, they were unable to get a steady supply of wine from France , and instead turned to Portugal . Port became the favoured wine in England during this time, and the English dominated the wine industry in Portugal .
By the mid 19th century, the wine industry of France enjoyed “Golden Age” period of prosperity. A new class of consumers, the bourgeoisie, emerged as a strong market for wine and other culinary products. Although the 19th century is considered to be the golden age of wines for the Bordeaux and Burgundy regions, it was not without tragedy. From the 1860s onwards, vineyards throughout Europe and other parts of the world were devastated by a North American aphid called Phylloxera vastatrix, an insect that attacks and destroys the roots of the vines. Millions of vines had to be uprooted and burned as a result of the spread of the tiny, vine-killing bug. The problem could only be fixed by grafting European vines onto the stem of the American vine, which was resistant to Phylloxera. The Phylloxera disaster affected European wine production for several decades, but it gave a boost to production elsewhere including the New World countries. The wines of the New World began challenging those of the Old World in the 19th century.
The first wave of expansion for Cypriot wines came with the misfortunes of the European viticulture sector. The cursed Philloxera beetle has never reached Cyprus . This meant that the indigenous vines grew undisturbed on their own rootstocks, often for 100 or even 150 years. As a consequence, demand for Cyprus grapes and wines, coupled with the relatively high prices offered, resulted in a mini boom for the industry. Further demand early in the 20th century came from local consumption and from the regional forces of Britain and France in the Middle East .
By 1883, the French vineyards had recovered from the Phylloxera blight and the French government imposed duties and discouraged imports to protect their own vineyards. In 1889, the Cypriots sent a delegation to London to lobby for a reduction in import duties on Cyprus wines, but without success. But the local industry proceeded undeterred. These were the years of the British Empire, with a strong presence in the Middle East , especially after World War I, from 1918 onwards. So the wine and spirits industry of Cyprus prospered with exports to all the places where the British were present: Palestine , Egypt , Sudan , even to the Arabian Gulf, as well as to the French in Lebanon and Syria .
As the new century started, there were the two up-to-date wine-making plants in Cyprus , the Chaplin family’s at Pera Pedhi and the Haggipavlu’s at Zanadzia, both in the Limassol district. Sales of products based on the grape grew steadily. In 1927, a group of Cypriot businessmen formed KEO (Cyprus Wine Corporation) with the objective of expanding modern wine production. In 1928, KEO purchased the Chaplin family winery and shortly afterwards started the construction of a second at Mallia village. As their wines came on to the market, a tacit agreement existed between KEO and Haggipavlu – that one would concentrate on wine and the other on brandy. This came to an end in 1935, when KEO opened a brandy distillery in Limassol, and Haggipavlu countered by purchasing the largest privately owned winery in Limassol and developing it into ETKO.
In 1943, following a strike, a breakaway group of trade union members from ETKO created a cooperative, LOEL. This was the first winery in Cyprus that was organised in the form of public company having thousands of shareholders, who in their majority were viticulturists. In the initial stages of its operation, LOEL produced spirits and fortified wines as the only quality products that could be produced from the indigenous grape varieties of those times – Mavro, Xynisteri and Muscat of Alexandria. Cyprus produced quality cheap wine and spirits (mainly in the form of Cyprus brandy) and the big four companies prospered as a result.
In 1947, a team of forward-looking vine growers decided to organize their grape own production, relieving themselves from the insecurities of the troubled times on the island, and created the great wine Co-operative, SODAP (the Vine Products Co-operative Marketing Union Ltd.) that united 10,000 families from 144 vine growing villages. From the beginning, SODAP was supported by the whole vine growing community, as it played the role of the stabilizing factor in the wine sector. SODAP owns and operates two wineries, one in Limassol and the other in Paphos, the two main vine producing areas of Cyprus . These “big four” wine producers (a term widely used to refer to KEO, ETKO, SODAP and LOEL) dominated the industry scene and survive to date. For most of the 20th century, the Cyprus wine industry focused on the production of inexpensive table wines mostly exported in bulk.
For more than 30 years, the Cyprus wine industry was “The Big Four”: KEO, ETKO, SODAP and LOEL, who produced very similar lines of wines, spirits, liqueurs and other by-products of grape juice. They were essentially businesses whose function was the utilisation of a basic raw material (grape juice) to make commercially viable products to be sold around the world in one form or another. The object was to produce profits or dividends for the shareholders, whether they were family members, grape growers or investors, large or small. The four major wineries on the island – ETKO (privately owned with 800,000 bottle production), KEO (a public company with four million bottles), LOEL (a public company selling two million bottles) and SODAP (a cooperative with 2½ million bottle sales) once controlled almost all the production.
Despite World War II, the Cyprus viticulture industry prospered. Although not a lot was done for it by the British, markets were available because of the British (and French) presence in the Middle East , which created a demand for wines and spirits produced on the island. Development resulted from the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit of the Cypriots running the Big Four. Good cheap brandy and other distilled products could always command a market, as could good grape juice, either in its natural form or fermented. So the sales executives of KEO, ETKO, LOEL and SODAP began to travel internationally, looking for opportunities. All over the world Cyprus sold its vine products – concentrated grape juice, pure alcohol for translation into vodka and other spirits, Sangria and other fruit-juice laced wines, at the same time developing its growing local market as the tourism industry began its upward surge. There were boom years and the industry prospered making literally hundreds of grape-based drinks: juices, concentrates, table wines, aperitif and dessert wines and vermouths. In 1954, 75 new varieties of vine were introduced to the island. Although there are only four main producers today, 10,000 families are involved in viticulture today. During the years that followed, both industry and government encouraged the introduction of several grape varieties from Italy , Spain and France .
Fortified wine, that is to say wine strengthened and stabilised by the addition of brandy or other spirit, was already popular in northern markets and the Cypriots had started making “Cyprus Sherry” in 1937. But it was in the late 1940’s that it really started to take off. In the 1950’s and 1960’s, the world was demanding low-priced products and Cyprus supplied them – dry, medium and sweet “Cyprus Sherry”, table wines sold in bulk to Britain (where it turned up in bottles with brand names like “Hirondelle”) and other countries, by the million litres. Wine, or “plonk”, to give it its vernacular title, was the party drink and you took us much as you could buy for a pound or two. “Cyprus Sherry” became a household commodity in Britain , whilst export to the Eastern European countries soared.
Incredibly cheap, EMVA Cream and many other brands started sweeping into the UK market – not yet the wine-loving country it is today, but one that consumed millions of gallons of “sticky” port or sherry, or imitations thereof, at Christmas and other celebratory times. By the 1960’s, Britain was consuming 13.6 million litres of Cyprus wines, half the island’s production, mostly as sweet sherry. A British market research study of fortified wines in 1978 showed Emva cream was the leading Cyprus sherry in terms of brand recognition, and second in that market only to Harveys’ Bristol Cream. The island became the UK ’s third leading wine supplier behind France and Spain . A major factor was that Cyprus Sherry was more affordable than Spanish Sherry, as British taxation favoured alcoholic beverages with an alcoholic content below the 15½%-18% bracket. This competitive advantage was lost a few years later with the re-banding of the alcohol content taxation. The fortified wine market also began to shrink as a whole, due to a change in consumer taste. As a result, Cyprus sherry sales in the UK fell from their peak in the early 1970’s by some 65% by the mid 1980’s. The final blow came when the EC ruled that as of January 1996, only fortified wine from Jerez could assume the title of sherry.
The other big market for Cyprus wine during the same period was the former Soviet bloc. Large volumes of low quality, mass produced, blended wines were sold to the eastern block with the cooperative wine producers (LOEL and SODAP) taking the lion’s share. This market began to dry up in the 1980’s and vanished altogether with the fall of communism. Comment on the industry’s mass production tactics came in a report by “The Times” in 1968, noting “the end of an underwater pipeline off the coast of Limassol linking to tankers taking on not gas or oil, but wine – 100 tons an hour of it – destined for about 40 countries throughout the world”.
Over the years, the number of grape varieties increased from a couple of dozen to over 200, however not all of them have been found suitable for local conditions, so the lion’s share during this period was provided by the local varieties “Mavro” (75%) and “Xynisteri” (15%). Newer varieties that have been introduced to Cyprus since the 1950’s include Palomino, Chardonnay, Semillon, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz , Carignan, Mataro , Alicante Bouchet, Merlot, Grenache, etc.
The change in the trend of viticulture during the period between 1950 and 1980 is evident from statistical records which give an increase from 83,000 tons in 1950 to 200,000 by 1980.
Most of the Cyprus wines produced in the 20th century were basic table wines of variable quality, from rustic wines that held some charm, to bottles that were not enjoyable to drink. The vineyards of Cyprus are mostly on the southern slopes of the Troodos mountain range near Limassol. The second area is in the south-western part of the island near Paphos. Problems with quality seem to arise because many of the grapes were harvested away from the winery and travel by road in open trucks, thus the grapes were inclined to spoil under these undesirable conditions.
Unfortunately, the winds of rapid change which marked the last few decades brought about a dramatic transformation to the economy as well as the political and cultural life of nations. They also had their impact on wine production and its marketing. The Cyprus wine industry suffered a severe blow from a number of events, the most important of which were: the joining of Britain to the European Union; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the competition for wines of the New World ; the influence of mass media; and the changes in consumers’ diet and life style.
Since independence in 1960, the Government has encouraged the creation of smaller wine enterprises in the grape-growing regions. Today there are more than 40 registered regional wineries, making a major contribution to the diversification of style and the development of new wines.
Moreover, during the past 25 years the situation has substantially changed. Cypriots have planted hundreds of thousands of new vines of famous international varieties and re-discovered old Cyprus types. They have built new or restored old wineries in the hills of Troodos. There are now several small wineries ready to compete in the international market on quality.
To be continued…………..
Wine News and Information
The cork industry is preparing a €20m advertising campaign using cork’s “scientific background” to convince the public of its benefits.
Cork has dozens of applications, including flooring, design and footwear in the automotive industry, the military and pharmaceuticals. It is lightweight and naturally fire-retardant, making it attractive to aircraft manufacturers. Wine corks are natural, bio-degradable, renewable products that have the potential of being recycled into other usable materials.
A cork stopper’s original purpose is to help a vintage reach its peak. They have been used in this way for more than four centuries, a practice said to be set into motion by French monk Dom Perignon. Though many trees have a layer of cork bark, the cork oak tree provides most of the world’s commercial cork (about 50% to 60% is used for wine corks) from trees grown primarily in the Mediterranean region where low rainfall, high humidity and plenty of sunshine provide optimum growing conditions.
As far as bottle closures are concerned, while alternative closures such as screw-caps are growing, cork is losing market share. The cork industry grossed €2.09bn in 2007/8, of which cork closures represented more than €1.7bn, or 80%. In 2009 there were 3.1bn screw-caps sold worldwide, a total which is increasing by 500m a year. The market share for cork closures has gone down from over 90% in the early 1990s to around 75% today. In 2009, 11.3bn units were sold, against 11.7bn in 2008, a decrease of 3.5%.
Monolithos Monthly News
With the flush of spring’s growth, things are moving at a faster rate both in the vineyard and at the winery. Cultivating for weeds or managing the vines for mildew becomes a priority. Timing and knowledge are paramount in the forming of fine wines during this rush of growth and in the maintaining of healthy vineyards.
Early spring is an active time in the wine cellar. Young white and red wines receive their final racking or cold stabilization before bottling. The first wine scheduled to undergo bottling this year is the new 2009 rose. However, all 2008 wines are available for tasting.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
We thank you for your continued support. Take care and remember, when in Cyprus follow the advice:
“Conserve water. Drink more wine.”
Saturday, 6 February 2010
The Cyprus Wine Blog: February 2010
Wine plays a role in our lives and in our identity. It has changed from a
local product meant to accompany food and to celebrate social gatherings
into a consumer commodity. The pleasures of wine cannot really be compared
with anything else. Furthermore, there is culture in wine. It can be found
in appreciating the craft of the winemaker, in understanding the
site-specific differences, in learning the diversity of grape varieties, in
comprehending geography and local traditions and participating in the ritual
of drinking wine.
When we eat, we describe food as being “delicious” or “satisfying” or
“overcooked”. A fish tastes and smells like fish and a steak tastes like a
steak. Wines, on the other hand, are different. It is very rare that wines
smell or taste of the fresh grapes they are made from. Wines often have an
aroma of exotic fruits, apples, blackberries, white pepper or even smoked
meats, cinnamon or leather. And that’s one of the strange beauties of vitis
vinifera, the wine grape: with absolutely no additives, and minimal
intervention by the winemaker, nearly all vinifera varieties will yield
wines that taste and smell nothing at all of grapes. When we say that we
taste strawberries, we mean a personal perception of the taste - not that
strawberries were somehow added to the wine. It is simply that all the
factors which have contributed to the making of the wine have resulted in a
beverage that has a strawberry flavour as part of its personality.
Everyone knows we have five senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell and
touch). The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears (Heraclitus). Sight,
hearing, smell, and taste depend on some sort of “intervening substance”
such as air or water through which stimulation can be facilitated. Touch,
on the other hand, places the sensing organ in direct contact with the
sensed object. The sense of touch is the most important of all our senses in
terms of its contribution to our physical development and growth. From
infancy to adulthood, touch is central to our emotional, psychological and
physiological development. Another distinction of the sense of touch is that
it is identified with the real. There are times when you can’t believe
your eyes, or your ears, and taste is personal and subjective, but touch is
proof.
Touch is the first sense and, as such, our first teacher. Each tactile
sensation gives us some fundamental understanding of the world around us. In
practice, various touch receptors throughout the body gather data about our
world. The brain records these sensations and compares them to our
experiences - good and bad. The comparative process leads to our perception
of that which is touched. For centuries it was commonly asserted that beauty
could only be apprehended by means of the senses of vision and hearing. Some
researchers however group touch, taste and smell together in terms of
“mouth-sense”. These senses have always ranked low in the hierarchy. The
“lower” senses are considered as merely physical and sensuous.
With respect to the taste process, touch holds an important place. The word
“taste” itself is derived from the medieval English word TASTEN which
means “to examine by touch”, wherein the tongue is central to the process.
Full taste experiences require conjunction with smell and touch as well.
Taste requires intimate, first-hand acquaintance with its objects. One
cannot judge the taste of food or wine from second-hand reports, and the
same may be said of an object of beauty. Furthermore, taste is a sense that
nearly always has a value valence - that is, one either likes or dislikes
what is tasted.
Our impression of the wine is based on visual, olfactory, gustatory and
tactile sensations, and the appreciation of the wine comes as the mental
synthesis of these sensations. Touch being a primary sense enables us to
distinguish various textures, temperature and tactile sensations, each of
which influences our perception. Texture is not commonly discussed, but it
is an important component in the experience of tasting wine. Texture refers
to how wine feels in the mouth. It is the feel of the fluid as it interacts
with your tongue, your cheeks, and your throat. It changes from the moment
the wine enters your mouth and lingers after it is swallowed. It can be
dynamic, moving in a linear fashion from the back to the front of your
mouth, or it can ricochet from side to side. It can be fine and delicate or
forceful. It can be pleasant or abusive. It can also be almost entirely
absent. Such sensations interact with aromas and flavours to create the
complex interaction we call “tasting”.
The idea of texture in a liquid is so difficult, in fact, that wine experts
cannot even agree on what to call it. Some experts (wine writers,
winemakers, wine marketers) settle for the awkward term “mouthfeel”, while
others call it body, structure, density, weight and viscosity. These terms
attempt to differentiate by placing more importance on a particular
component of the tactile sensory stimulus.
The texture, mouthfeel and balance are commonly referred to as the wine’s
structure. A good beginning point to getting a grip on structure is to
remember that a typical wine is made up of 80-85% water. If we consider
water to be basically neutral where our tactile impressions of wine are
concerned, then we’ve just made our jobs slightly easier, since we only
have to look at what remains of the wine’s composition. That remaining
15-20% is where we find the alcohol, tannin, acid, sugars, and so forth.
It’s these components that give wine structure and texture, and it’s the
way they make our mouths feel that we attempt to describe.
The seven components of importance in structural/textural balance include:
volume (body), acidity, roughness, tannin, intensity, astringency, dryness
and bitterness. At its simplest, wine texture begins with two components:
glycerine and tannin. Glycerine gives wine a syrupy viscosity with a mild
sense of sweetness and is a natural product of fermentation. “Legs” on the
sides of your wineglass are largely caused by the interaction of glycerine
and alcohol. Tannins are found in grape skins and seeds. Even with immediate
gentle pressing of white grapes, some tannin is extracted. Tannins give wine
astringency and bitterness. This can be a mild dryness on your palate or
frank bitterness throughout your mouth. Tannins lend a sense of weight and
power, especially when they are in balance with other components in the
wine. As wine ages, tannin molecules coalesce to form larger molecules that
are less bitter and may eventually drop out of the solution as sediment.
Tannins can help a wine age if the strength of fruit behind them is powerful
enough to outlast the tannins.
There are several sources of texture in wine. Barrel fermentation and ageing
in new oak barrels add texture. Ageing on the yeast lees is an ancient way
to build texture, the extreme example being vintage Champagnes, which are
often aged in excess of five years on the yeast lees. In some locations,
vineyards produce grapes that are especially textural. Winemakers
continually make decisions that change the textural signature of their
wines. Racking (moving wine from barrel to barrel), fining (adding products
that bind tannin), and the length of ageing before bottling, all affect
texture. Achieving the correct texture will result in a more complete wine -
a wine with a clearer sense of its location, region or country of origin.
The tactile sensation of body, or consistency, is that physical perception
which allows the definition of the nature of the substance in the mouth to
realize whether it is a liquid, viscous or solid substance. The sensation is
perceived in the whole oral cavity and allows the body to “decide” the
best treatment for the substance which is in the mouth before being
swallowed. In wine, it is usually determined by its fluidity, that is by its
consistency, and this sensation makes possible the definition, as we will
see later, of the body or structure of wine.
Wine induces a wide range of tactile sensations:
● Mechanical sensations: Indicate the wine’s texture.
● Heat sensations: Index of the wine’s temperature.
● Pseudo-heat sensations: Due to the presence of alcohol that causes
burning and heat.
● Physical sensations: Create an impression of dryness, and roughness.
How a wine feels in our mouth (or its “mouthfeel”) plays an important role
in how much we like it. Just like velvet feels smooth and sandpaper rough,
the surfaces of our mouth detect astringency from tannin, bite from carbon
dioxide and the dual effects of high alcohol - heat and viscosity.
Mouthfeel is associated with the physical and chemical interaction in the
mouth, an aspect of rheology (the study of the deformation and flow of
matter). It is a concept used in many areas related to the testing and
evaluating of foodstuffs, such as wine-tasting. It is evaluated from initial
perception on the palate to swallowing and aftertaste. In wine-tasting, for
example, mouthfeel is usually used with a modifier (big, sweet, tannic,
chewy, etc.) to the general sensation of the wine in the mouth. Most
mouthfeel descriptors are related to texture; for example, silky, smooth,
velvety and rough. Mouthfeel is influenced by wine components, as acidity
can be sharp, alcohol can be hot, tannin can be rough and sugar can be thick
or cloying.
Mouthfeel is often related to a product’s water activity, hard or crisp
products having lower water activities and soft products having intermediate
to high water activities. Some common words we use to describe mouthfeel
are: “astringent”, “austere”, “creamy”, “chewy”, “dry”, “fat”,
“flabby”, “harsh”, “hollow”, “hot”, “juicy”, “lean”, “lush”,
“heavy or dense”, “delicate or light”, “plush”, “sweet”, “tannic”
and “tingly or bubbly” but, again, there are no specific rules. Mouthfeel
is a concept undergoing increasing study as winemakers seek to enhance these
sensations to create more pleasurable wines - and wines that score higher in
critics’ ratings. Not long ago, mouthfeel was just something that happened
to good wines; now it can be micro-managed in exquisite detail, if that’s
needed or desired.
Body or viscosity is another tactile sensation. The body of a wine refers to
the fullness, weight, concentration and total mouthfeel and is typically
qualified as “light bodied”, “medium bodied” or “full bodied”. For
example, skimmed milk could be considered “light-bodied", whole milk
“medium-bodied” and cream “full-bodied”. The impression of weight,
fullness or thickness on the palate is the result of a combination of
alcohol, sugar, and dissolved solids (including sugars, phenolics, minerals
and acids) and, to a lesser extent, glycerin. Although a fuller-bodied wine
makes a bigger impression in the mouth, it is not necessarily higher in
quality than a lighter-bodied wine.
Body is one of the most often misunderstood components of wine. The
description “full bodied” is frequently applied to wines that are high in
either alcohol or tannin or in both, without the actual texture and weight
of the wine being “full” at all. Body should be thought of as the relative
“thickness” or viscosity of the wine. Wine has a lot of stuff dissolved in
it that, together with dry extracts, contributes to the weight or body:
sugars, flavanoids, alcohol, etc. In fact, over 400 different compounds have
been identified in red wine, and we are still counting. One indication of a
wine’s body is its colour - the deeper the colour, the fuller the body. A
wine’s body is measured by swirling it around the glass and seeing how long
it takes the wine to flow down the sides. Full-bodied wines are heavy and
come down the sides of the glass in sheets. Medium-bodied wines are less
thick and break into “legs” (lines of colourless glycerine) as they flow
down the sides. Light-bodied wines are not heavy and will not cling to the
sides of the glass when swirled. Wines lacking body are often described as
thin or lean. Those with too much body, making them tiring and unpleasant to
drink, are referred to being fat or heavy.
These days, everyone seems to be searching for great body, even in their
wines, and wines from hot climates tend to have more body. Thermal tactile
sensation, caused by temperature, besides influencing the perception of
flavours and taste, mainly represents a defensive response. Its purpose is
to detect dangerous conditions for the body in case a too hot or too cold
beverage or food is being ingested: the typical reaction is to expel the
content of the mouth before being injured. The temperature alters the
perception of flavours and, in certain cases, the perception of other
tactile sensations. In sparkling wines, temperature influences the
development and action of carbon dioxide, which is responsible for pungency.
A low temperature favours a slow release and pleasantness of this gas, while
high temperatures favour a sudden and rapid release.
Although tactile sensations cannot be defined or considered as flavours,
they contribute anyway to the general perception of taste and, particularly,
to the gustatory evaluation of a wine. They allow the determination of this
beverage’s balance and, lastly, the grade of pleasantness. Tactile
sensations are perceived in every part of the oral cavity and in the tongue,
in particular the central area.
A pseudo-caloric tactile sensation, or causticity, is experienced in wine by
the presence of alcohol. The more the quantity of alcohol, the more will be
the perception of this tactile sensation which can be described as a dryness
of the oral mucosa which in turn responds as a “burning” sensation in the
whole oral cavity.
Astringency is another tactile sensation which is detected when in the mouth
is perceived a certain dryness and “roughness” in the whole oral cavity
and tongue seems not to move in the mouth with its usual easiness. This
sensation is usually caused by tannins present in wine which have the
property of combining with some proteins of saliva and coagulating it,
therefore the saliva lose its typical lubricant effect. The sensation of
dryness is also because of the inhibition of saliva secretion which is the
response to the stimulus of astringency.
Concluding this short article on the role of tactile sensations in the taste
of wine, it can be stated that harmony in a wine depends on the way tastes,
aromas and tactile sensations combine. The overall balance is related to the
harmony and equilibrium of the competing tastes, textures and aromas in the
wine.
Wine News and Information
Asia’s wine consumption is set to grow by 25% in the next five years in
stark contrast to a predicted fall in European wine drinking, according to
new figures released recently by Vinexpo. It predicts the Asian wine and
spirits market will be worth $6.4 billion by 2011, with wine consumption
growing to nearly 1.3 billion litres between 2009 and 2013 - a rate five
times faster than the rest of the world.
By contrast, the figures compiled in association with International Wine &
Spirit Record predict that European wine consumption will fall by 0.7% over
the same period, with the United States the only other big winner with
consumption up by 7.6%. In the next five years, a 3.6% increase in the
global wine market is expected, relatively lower than the period 2003 to
2008 which registered 4.8% increase. Vinexpo also predicts sparkling wine
sales (including Champagne) will increase faster than still wine in the next
five years (over 1% against a below 1% increase for still wine). However,
the Asian markets and particularly China and India will really drive global
wine sales and consumption. The scale and significance of the Asian market
is why Vinexpo is to hold its next exhibition in Hong Kong.
Red wine not only goes well with a nice meal, it helps the stomach convert
potentially harmful chemicals into less dangerous molecules before they’re
circulated in the body, according to a new study slated to be published in
an upcoming journal of Toxicology. A team of Portuguese researchers found
that specific polyphenols in red wine trigger the release of nitric oxide, a
chemical that relaxes the stomach wall, helping to optimize digestion.
A new study released by the Nielsen Company shows a 28% jump in imported
rose sales in the United States in the past year, nearly eight times faster
than the overall growth of wine sales in the U.S. According to Nielsen,
this is part of a trend that’s been accelerating for the five years the
company has measured rose consumption. Overall, U.S. wine consumption
continues to grow because “people see it as an affordable indulgence”.
There is a demand by consumers for moderately priced wines at $10 to $20.
Apparently there is an increase in pink wines produced by red-white blush
blends. Imported rose is hitting a sweet spot of consumer trends: an
increase in drinking moderately priced wines at $10 to $20, wine pairing
with lighter world cuisines and a thirst for dry light wines. The reasons
for the surge are twofold - the result of improvements in winemaking,
coupled with changes in lifestyles. Until recently, rose wines were produced
by removing fermenting juice with the primary goal of concentrating colour
and aromas in the remaining red wine. Rose is now the goal, not simply a
by-product. Vineyards are now managing to produce grapes ideal for rose.
Since the 1980s, there’s been a general push to increase the quality and
complexity of rose. At the same time, lighter Mediterranean-style cuisines
and Asian influences have been a food-pairing advantage for rose in France
(where in the past two decades rose consumption has doubled and shot ahead
of white wine) as well as much of the wine drinking world.
Monolithos Monthly News
While vines may lay dormant in silent vineyards for much of the winter, the
season is not without its activity. Most of the work centres on pruning the
vines for the coming year, and that can begin as early as December. What is
left after the pruning becomes the basis for the next year’s crop. If
pruned too severely, the vine’s fruitfulness and strength may be
compromised. Conversely, if pruned too little, the vine will push out too
many shoots and leaves, producing too much fruit and becoming unbalanced. In
general, growers cut away most of the canes left over from the previous
year’s activity, leaving a few which will, in turn, produce shoots that
grow into canes which produce fruit. The general idea is to cut away enough
of the vine so its energy can be focused on ripening fruit efficiently.
In winter, wine resembles the vines from which it came: it too is dormant,
quietly clarifying, pulling to the bottom the yeast and sediment from the
autumn winemaking. Slow crystallization of the excess acidity occurs in the
chill of winter, a process that softens wine for its future consumption.
In the winery, all wines are clarified and stabilised before bottling.
Clarification may be racking by gravity, or filtration. Tartrate
stabilisation is achieved by chilling the wine below 4°C.
Blending occurs when all the wine has completed primary and secondary
fermentation and has been protein and tartrate stabilised. Each wine is
blended to achieve the winemaker’s objectives. Blending is the intricate
part of winemaking. Winemakers generally try to maintain consistency from
vintage to vintage. However there is a growing trend, particularly with
single vineyard wines, to allow them to express their site and season, so
there may be some variation between vintages.
The first wines scheduled to be bottled by the end of February are the rose
and white dry types. However all last year’s vintage wines are available
for tasting.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit
the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to
meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate
to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
We thank you for your continued support. Take care and remember there are no
standards of taste in wine… Each person’s own taste is the standard, and
a majority vote cannot decide for you nor affect, even to slightest degree,
the supremacy of your own standard.
local product meant to accompany food and to celebrate social gatherings
into a consumer commodity. The pleasures of wine cannot really be compared
with anything else. Furthermore, there is culture in wine. It can be found
in appreciating the craft of the winemaker, in understanding the
site-specific differences, in learning the diversity of grape varieties, in
comprehending geography and local traditions and participating in the ritual
of drinking wine.
When we eat, we describe food as being “delicious” or “satisfying” or
“overcooked”. A fish tastes and smells like fish and a steak tastes like a
steak. Wines, on the other hand, are different. It is very rare that wines
smell or taste of the fresh grapes they are made from. Wines often have an
aroma of exotic fruits, apples, blackberries, white pepper or even smoked
meats, cinnamon or leather. And that’s one of the strange beauties of vitis
vinifera, the wine grape: with absolutely no additives, and minimal
intervention by the winemaker, nearly all vinifera varieties will yield
wines that taste and smell nothing at all of grapes. When we say that we
taste strawberries, we mean a personal perception of the taste - not that
strawberries were somehow added to the wine. It is simply that all the
factors which have contributed to the making of the wine have resulted in a
beverage that has a strawberry flavour as part of its personality.
Everyone knows we have five senses (vision, hearing, taste, smell and
touch). The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears (Heraclitus). Sight,
hearing, smell, and taste depend on some sort of “intervening substance”
such as air or water through which stimulation can be facilitated. Touch,
on the other hand, places the sensing organ in direct contact with the
sensed object. The sense of touch is the most important of all our senses in
terms of its contribution to our physical development and growth. From
infancy to adulthood, touch is central to our emotional, psychological and
physiological development. Another distinction of the sense of touch is that
it is identified with the real. There are times when you can’t believe
your eyes, or your ears, and taste is personal and subjective, but touch is
proof.
Touch is the first sense and, as such, our first teacher. Each tactile
sensation gives us some fundamental understanding of the world around us. In
practice, various touch receptors throughout the body gather data about our
world. The brain records these sensations and compares them to our
experiences - good and bad. The comparative process leads to our perception
of that which is touched. For centuries it was commonly asserted that beauty
could only be apprehended by means of the senses of vision and hearing. Some
researchers however group touch, taste and smell together in terms of
“mouth-sense”. These senses have always ranked low in the hierarchy. The
“lower” senses are considered as merely physical and sensuous.
With respect to the taste process, touch holds an important place. The word
“taste” itself is derived from the medieval English word TASTEN which
means “to examine by touch”, wherein the tongue is central to the process.
Full taste experiences require conjunction with smell and touch as well.
Taste requires intimate, first-hand acquaintance with its objects. One
cannot judge the taste of food or wine from second-hand reports, and the
same may be said of an object of beauty. Furthermore, taste is a sense that
nearly always has a value valence - that is, one either likes or dislikes
what is tasted.
Our impression of the wine is based on visual, olfactory, gustatory and
tactile sensations, and the appreciation of the wine comes as the mental
synthesis of these sensations. Touch being a primary sense enables us to
distinguish various textures, temperature and tactile sensations, each of
which influences our perception. Texture is not commonly discussed, but it
is an important component in the experience of tasting wine. Texture refers
to how wine feels in the mouth. It is the feel of the fluid as it interacts
with your tongue, your cheeks, and your throat. It changes from the moment
the wine enters your mouth and lingers after it is swallowed. It can be
dynamic, moving in a linear fashion from the back to the front of your
mouth, or it can ricochet from side to side. It can be fine and delicate or
forceful. It can be pleasant or abusive. It can also be almost entirely
absent. Such sensations interact with aromas and flavours to create the
complex interaction we call “tasting”.
The idea of texture in a liquid is so difficult, in fact, that wine experts
cannot even agree on what to call it. Some experts (wine writers,
winemakers, wine marketers) settle for the awkward term “mouthfeel”, while
others call it body, structure, density, weight and viscosity. These terms
attempt to differentiate by placing more importance on a particular
component of the tactile sensory stimulus.
The texture, mouthfeel and balance are commonly referred to as the wine’s
structure. A good beginning point to getting a grip on structure is to
remember that a typical wine is made up of 80-85% water. If we consider
water to be basically neutral where our tactile impressions of wine are
concerned, then we’ve just made our jobs slightly easier, since we only
have to look at what remains of the wine’s composition. That remaining
15-20% is where we find the alcohol, tannin, acid, sugars, and so forth.
It’s these components that give wine structure and texture, and it’s the
way they make our mouths feel that we attempt to describe.
The seven components of importance in structural/textural balance include:
volume (body), acidity, roughness, tannin, intensity, astringency, dryness
and bitterness. At its simplest, wine texture begins with two components:
glycerine and tannin. Glycerine gives wine a syrupy viscosity with a mild
sense of sweetness and is a natural product of fermentation. “Legs” on the
sides of your wineglass are largely caused by the interaction of glycerine
and alcohol. Tannins are found in grape skins and seeds. Even with immediate
gentle pressing of white grapes, some tannin is extracted. Tannins give wine
astringency and bitterness. This can be a mild dryness on your palate or
frank bitterness throughout your mouth. Tannins lend a sense of weight and
power, especially when they are in balance with other components in the
wine. As wine ages, tannin molecules coalesce to form larger molecules that
are less bitter and may eventually drop out of the solution as sediment.
Tannins can help a wine age if the strength of fruit behind them is powerful
enough to outlast the tannins.
There are several sources of texture in wine. Barrel fermentation and ageing
in new oak barrels add texture. Ageing on the yeast lees is an ancient way
to build texture, the extreme example being vintage Champagnes, which are
often aged in excess of five years on the yeast lees. In some locations,
vineyards produce grapes that are especially textural. Winemakers
continually make decisions that change the textural signature of their
wines. Racking (moving wine from barrel to barrel), fining (adding products
that bind tannin), and the length of ageing before bottling, all affect
texture. Achieving the correct texture will result in a more complete wine -
a wine with a clearer sense of its location, region or country of origin.
The tactile sensation of body, or consistency, is that physical perception
which allows the definition of the nature of the substance in the mouth to
realize whether it is a liquid, viscous or solid substance. The sensation is
perceived in the whole oral cavity and allows the body to “decide” the
best treatment for the substance which is in the mouth before being
swallowed. In wine, it is usually determined by its fluidity, that is by its
consistency, and this sensation makes possible the definition, as we will
see later, of the body or structure of wine.
Wine induces a wide range of tactile sensations:
● Mechanical sensations: Indicate the wine’s texture.
● Heat sensations: Index of the wine’s temperature.
● Pseudo-heat sensations: Due to the presence of alcohol that causes
burning and heat.
● Physical sensations: Create an impression of dryness, and roughness.
How a wine feels in our mouth (or its “mouthfeel”) plays an important role
in how much we like it. Just like velvet feels smooth and sandpaper rough,
the surfaces of our mouth detect astringency from tannin, bite from carbon
dioxide and the dual effects of high alcohol - heat and viscosity.
Mouthfeel is associated with the physical and chemical interaction in the
mouth, an aspect of rheology (the study of the deformation and flow of
matter). It is a concept used in many areas related to the testing and
evaluating of foodstuffs, such as wine-tasting. It is evaluated from initial
perception on the palate to swallowing and aftertaste. In wine-tasting, for
example, mouthfeel is usually used with a modifier (big, sweet, tannic,
chewy, etc.) to the general sensation of the wine in the mouth. Most
mouthfeel descriptors are related to texture; for example, silky, smooth,
velvety and rough. Mouthfeel is influenced by wine components, as acidity
can be sharp, alcohol can be hot, tannin can be rough and sugar can be thick
or cloying.
Mouthfeel is often related to a product’s water activity, hard or crisp
products having lower water activities and soft products having intermediate
to high water activities. Some common words we use to describe mouthfeel
are: “astringent”, “austere”, “creamy”, “chewy”, “dry”, “fat”,
“flabby”, “harsh”, “hollow”, “hot”, “juicy”, “lean”, “lush”,
“heavy or dense”, “delicate or light”, “plush”, “sweet”, “tannic”
and “tingly or bubbly” but, again, there are no specific rules. Mouthfeel
is a concept undergoing increasing study as winemakers seek to enhance these
sensations to create more pleasurable wines - and wines that score higher in
critics’ ratings. Not long ago, mouthfeel was just something that happened
to good wines; now it can be micro-managed in exquisite detail, if that’s
needed or desired.
Body or viscosity is another tactile sensation. The body of a wine refers to
the fullness, weight, concentration and total mouthfeel and is typically
qualified as “light bodied”, “medium bodied” or “full bodied”. For
example, skimmed milk could be considered “light-bodied", whole milk
“medium-bodied” and cream “full-bodied”. The impression of weight,
fullness or thickness on the palate is the result of a combination of
alcohol, sugar, and dissolved solids (including sugars, phenolics, minerals
and acids) and, to a lesser extent, glycerin. Although a fuller-bodied wine
makes a bigger impression in the mouth, it is not necessarily higher in
quality than a lighter-bodied wine.
Body is one of the most often misunderstood components of wine. The
description “full bodied” is frequently applied to wines that are high in
either alcohol or tannin or in both, without the actual texture and weight
of the wine being “full” at all. Body should be thought of as the relative
“thickness” or viscosity of the wine. Wine has a lot of stuff dissolved in
it that, together with dry extracts, contributes to the weight or body:
sugars, flavanoids, alcohol, etc. In fact, over 400 different compounds have
been identified in red wine, and we are still counting. One indication of a
wine’s body is its colour - the deeper the colour, the fuller the body. A
wine’s body is measured by swirling it around the glass and seeing how long
it takes the wine to flow down the sides. Full-bodied wines are heavy and
come down the sides of the glass in sheets. Medium-bodied wines are less
thick and break into “legs” (lines of colourless glycerine) as they flow
down the sides. Light-bodied wines are not heavy and will not cling to the
sides of the glass when swirled. Wines lacking body are often described as
thin or lean. Those with too much body, making them tiring and unpleasant to
drink, are referred to being fat or heavy.
These days, everyone seems to be searching for great body, even in their
wines, and wines from hot climates tend to have more body. Thermal tactile
sensation, caused by temperature, besides influencing the perception of
flavours and taste, mainly represents a defensive response. Its purpose is
to detect dangerous conditions for the body in case a too hot or too cold
beverage or food is being ingested: the typical reaction is to expel the
content of the mouth before being injured. The temperature alters the
perception of flavours and, in certain cases, the perception of other
tactile sensations. In sparkling wines, temperature influences the
development and action of carbon dioxide, which is responsible for pungency.
A low temperature favours a slow release and pleasantness of this gas, while
high temperatures favour a sudden and rapid release.
Although tactile sensations cannot be defined or considered as flavours,
they contribute anyway to the general perception of taste and, particularly,
to the gustatory evaluation of a wine. They allow the determination of this
beverage’s balance and, lastly, the grade of pleasantness. Tactile
sensations are perceived in every part of the oral cavity and in the tongue,
in particular the central area.
A pseudo-caloric tactile sensation, or causticity, is experienced in wine by
the presence of alcohol. The more the quantity of alcohol, the more will be
the perception of this tactile sensation which can be described as a dryness
of the oral mucosa which in turn responds as a “burning” sensation in the
whole oral cavity.
Astringency is another tactile sensation which is detected when in the mouth
is perceived a certain dryness and “roughness” in the whole oral cavity
and tongue seems not to move in the mouth with its usual easiness. This
sensation is usually caused by tannins present in wine which have the
property of combining with some proteins of saliva and coagulating it,
therefore the saliva lose its typical lubricant effect. The sensation of
dryness is also because of the inhibition of saliva secretion which is the
response to the stimulus of astringency.
Concluding this short article on the role of tactile sensations in the taste
of wine, it can be stated that harmony in a wine depends on the way tastes,
aromas and tactile sensations combine. The overall balance is related to the
harmony and equilibrium of the competing tastes, textures and aromas in the
wine.
Wine News and Information
Asia’s wine consumption is set to grow by 25% in the next five years in
stark contrast to a predicted fall in European wine drinking, according to
new figures released recently by Vinexpo. It predicts the Asian wine and
spirits market will be worth $6.4 billion by 2011, with wine consumption
growing to nearly 1.3 billion litres between 2009 and 2013 - a rate five
times faster than the rest of the world.
By contrast, the figures compiled in association with International Wine &
Spirit Record predict that European wine consumption will fall by 0.7% over
the same period, with the United States the only other big winner with
consumption up by 7.6%. In the next five years, a 3.6% increase in the
global wine market is expected, relatively lower than the period 2003 to
2008 which registered 4.8% increase. Vinexpo also predicts sparkling wine
sales (including Champagne) will increase faster than still wine in the next
five years (over 1% against a below 1% increase for still wine). However,
the Asian markets and particularly China and India will really drive global
wine sales and consumption. The scale and significance of the Asian market
is why Vinexpo is to hold its next exhibition in Hong Kong.
Red wine not only goes well with a nice meal, it helps the stomach convert
potentially harmful chemicals into less dangerous molecules before they’re
circulated in the body, according to a new study slated to be published in
an upcoming journal of Toxicology. A team of Portuguese researchers found
that specific polyphenols in red wine trigger the release of nitric oxide, a
chemical that relaxes the stomach wall, helping to optimize digestion.
A new study released by the Nielsen Company shows a 28% jump in imported
rose sales in the United States in the past year, nearly eight times faster
than the overall growth of wine sales in the U.S. According to Nielsen,
this is part of a trend that’s been accelerating for the five years the
company has measured rose consumption. Overall, U.S. wine consumption
continues to grow because “people see it as an affordable indulgence”.
There is a demand by consumers for moderately priced wines at $10 to $20.
Apparently there is an increase in pink wines produced by red-white blush
blends. Imported rose is hitting a sweet spot of consumer trends: an
increase in drinking moderately priced wines at $10 to $20, wine pairing
with lighter world cuisines and a thirst for dry light wines. The reasons
for the surge are twofold - the result of improvements in winemaking,
coupled with changes in lifestyles. Until recently, rose wines were produced
by removing fermenting juice with the primary goal of concentrating colour
and aromas in the remaining red wine. Rose is now the goal, not simply a
by-product. Vineyards are now managing to produce grapes ideal for rose.
Since the 1980s, there’s been a general push to increase the quality and
complexity of rose. At the same time, lighter Mediterranean-style cuisines
and Asian influences have been a food-pairing advantage for rose in France
(where in the past two decades rose consumption has doubled and shot ahead
of white wine) as well as much of the wine drinking world.
Monolithos Monthly News
While vines may lay dormant in silent vineyards for much of the winter, the
season is not without its activity. Most of the work centres on pruning the
vines for the coming year, and that can begin as early as December. What is
left after the pruning becomes the basis for the next year’s crop. If
pruned too severely, the vine’s fruitfulness and strength may be
compromised. Conversely, if pruned too little, the vine will push out too
many shoots and leaves, producing too much fruit and becoming unbalanced. In
general, growers cut away most of the canes left over from the previous
year’s activity, leaving a few which will, in turn, produce shoots that
grow into canes which produce fruit. The general idea is to cut away enough
of the vine so its energy can be focused on ripening fruit efficiently.
In winter, wine resembles the vines from which it came: it too is dormant,
quietly clarifying, pulling to the bottom the yeast and sediment from the
autumn winemaking. Slow crystallization of the excess acidity occurs in the
chill of winter, a process that softens wine for its future consumption.
In the winery, all wines are clarified and stabilised before bottling.
Clarification may be racking by gravity, or filtration. Tartrate
stabilisation is achieved by chilling the wine below 4°C.
Blending occurs when all the wine has completed primary and secondary
fermentation and has been protein and tartrate stabilised. Each wine is
blended to achieve the winemaker’s objectives. Blending is the intricate
part of winemaking. Winemakers generally try to maintain consistency from
vintage to vintage. However there is a growing trend, particularly with
single vineyard wines, to allow them to express their site and season, so
there may be some variation between vintages.
The first wines scheduled to be bottled by the end of February are the rose
and white dry types. However all last year’s vintage wines are available
for tasting.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit
the winery or purchase any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to
meet and assist you at his “Fig Tree Villa” in Pachna, so do not hesitate
to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
We thank you for your continued support. Take care and remember there are no
standards of taste in wine… Each person’s own taste is the standard, and
a majority vote cannot decide for you nor affect, even to slightest degree,
the supremacy of your own standard.
Monday, 11 January 2010
The Cyprus wine blog - January 2010
It's January 2010 - the new millennium is not so new any more. We are already through the first decade. Whatever the custom, whatever the country, no matter where we live, the New Year signifies a new start, a new life. People feel a sense of rebirth and renewal facing a new year and want to drop bad habits and embrace new, healthy ones. We take the opportunity to throw out the mistakes of the past year and start anew. We wish each other good luck and promise ourselves to do better in the coming 12 months.
Making wine is probably as old as humankind itself is. The first written tale of wine is said to be in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Apparently, Noah planted vines and made wine. Scientists have dated fossilized grape vines at 60 million years old. Scientists and historians alike believe that wine was not invented; it was more discovered by chance. They believe that ancient people made the discovery of wine when they found their grapes had spoiled and fermented, creating fermented grape juice. There is a story frequently quoted by many folklorists about a Persian Princess who is credited for the discovery of wine. According to this fable, the Princess - having lost the favour of the King - attempted to poison herself. She went into the basement of the palace and found a jar of grapes, which were fermenting and giving out heat and gas. She assumed that the jar contained poison so she treated herself with as much spoiled grapes as she could. She subsequently became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she woke up, she found that she her depression disappeared and felt joyous. She eventually told the king of this magical discovery. The King liked her new attitude and after tasting himself the fermented juice, he felt so cheerful that he admitted her back into his good graces.
Historians believe that Neolithic man gave the world winemaking. Not only had the domestication of the grapevine permitted him to take advantage of the potentials of this innovation, but also the development of ceramics. The manufacture of pottery, the earliest of which appeared in 6000 BC, by the Neolithic people was the technological advance that made winemaking possible. The first traces of the production of wine were found around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran . Very soon, the cultivation of the vine and the production of wine spread west from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean coast and Egypt .
Texts from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there around 2700 to 2500 BC. Wine was particularly popular as an offering to the gods - and inevitably, gods became patrons of the drink. The Jews had Noah, the Greeks had Dionysos, the Indians had God Soma, the Egyptians had Osiris, and the Romans Bacchus. In Greek mythology, Dionysus, son of Zeus and his mistress Semele, are named as the inventors of wine. The high regard for wine from the ancient Greeks is best illustrated in a quote from the famed historian Thucydides: "The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the grape."
One of the oldest winemaking regions in the world is Cyprus . A study of the evolution of wine in Cyprus reveals three broad and distinct periods, or three leaps of history that have left their marked footprints in the development of the island.
The first period lasted several thousand years, from the time the cultivation of the vine appeared on the scene till the time the Ottomans discouraged winemaking and its consumption. The second period begins with the arrival of the British, which triggered the revival of the wine industry and lasted nearly a century. The third is the period we are currently experiencing, a period of rapid growth - a wine-revolution that aims at providing the international market with world-class wines with Cypriot identity.
The First Period (3500BC - 1898 A.D)
Cypriot wines trace their roots as far back as the Neolithic times, and possibly even before that. Exactly how far back wine production in Cyprus goes is unknown. Excavations on the outskirts of Erimi village unearthed (amongst other artefacts) pottery fragments dated to the chalcolithic period (between 3500 BC-3000 BC). In 2005, a team of Italian archaeologists led by Maria-Rosaria Belgiorno examined the chemical signatures of 18 of these. Twelve showed traces of tartaric acid (a component of wine), proving that the 5,500-year-old vases were used for wine. Another archaeological excavation near the village of Pyrgos on the outskirts of Limassol led to the discovery of a Bronze Age (2500-2000 BC) perfumery. Near this perfumery, an olive press, a winery, and copper smelting works were also discovered. Wine containers and even the seeds of grapes were unearthed.
The island's winemaking tradition is already well documented, but these latest discoveries prove that Cypriots were the region's oldest winemakers. Wine was being traded at least as early as 2300 BC, the date of a shipwreck carrying over 2,500 amphorae, discovered in 1999, lying on the seabed off Cyprus ' southern shore. These findings predate winemaking by ancient Greeks by at least 1,500 years.
After the arrival of the Mycenaeans in around 1400 BC and the mass waves of Achaean Greeks, the Greek language, religion and customs spread throughout the island. It was during this period that wine drinking became the pre-eminent beverage and played an important social and cultural role in the daily life of the ancient Cypriots. At Enkomi on the South East coast of Cyprus, a 12th century BC building with benches along its walls, one of the most imposing public buildings of this Late Bronze Age town, was considered by the excavator as the main reception hall where feasts used to take place and wine was available. In an adjoining room, large storage jars were found which were used for oil, wine or grain. At Maa-Palaeokastro, a 12th century BC settlement in the Paphos District, excavations have brought to light a large number of drinking cups of Mycenaean type. This settlement has been identified as a military outpost where immigrants from the Aegean settled around 1200 BC. The drinking cups are no doubt indicative of what they did in their spare time.
The fame of Cyprus wines spread throughout the ancient world and were richly praised and immortalized by contemporary poets, historians and artists. There was praise for Cyprus wines in Homer's poems and, thanks to his writings, we have precious insights into the life and customs of ancient Greeks. The Cypriot poet Stassinos, in his epic songs about Cyprus , mentions the myth of Anios and his three daughters Oeno, Spermo and Elaida, who had the magical powers of producing wine, wheat and oil respectively. Homer and Pindaros paid tribute to Cyprus wines, and in 735 BC, Hesiod described the manufacturing process of the sweet "Nama" of Cyprus .
"Leave the grapes ten days in the sun, ten nights and then five days in the shade and eight more in the jar".
Reference to the Cypriot wines is made also by Euripides, one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens . He wrote of large numbers of pilgrimages visiting Cyprus to follow the cult of Aphrodite and to taste the island's "Nama" wines. Cypriot wines are also mentioned in the Bible. In Solomon's "Song of Songs", the verse "My beloved is unto me as a henna flower in the vineyards of Egadi" makes reference to a village in Cyprus . The people of Ancient Egypt loved wine and were among the first to record the harvest of grapes on stone tablets and the walls of their tombs. The Egyptians, and particularly the Pharoahs of Egypt, showed special preference and affection to Cypriot wines.
In the Hellenistic period, wine came to embody Greek culture and became more widely available. Greek citizens spent much of their time discussing wine and finding ways of making it even more enjoyable. Wine was used not only in the Symposia, the Greek drinking parties, but also medicinally to clean wounds and as a safer drink than water. They also traded different wines among the many Greek islands. Cypriot wines were in great demand by the ancient Greeks, and later by the Romans. In many early Greek books, Cyprus is referred to as "Evinos" - or the island of good wine.
Wine also played a role in the religion of the Greek dominions, with Dionysus as its specific deity. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was also the God of Ecstasy and his cult was one of the mystery religions. He produced the first wine from the vine, and spread the art of tending grapes, but he also had a dual side to his nature - on the one hand he could bring about joy and divine ecstasy, and on the other hand, brutal unthinking rage, both reflecting the nature of wine. No other god has ever been more joyfully celebrated than Dionysus and his Roman replica, Bacchus. Dionysus was one of the most important gods in everyday life, and was associated with several key concepts. One was rebirth after death. His dismemberment by the Titans and return to life is symbolically echoed in tending vines. Each year the vines are pruned back sharply and left to become dormant through the winter, ready to bear fruit in the following spring.
The mosaics in the House of Dionysus at Paphos depict the story of the first mortal Icarios to be taught how to make wine. The teacher was Dionysus, the god of wine himself. According to mosaic picture and mythology, Icarios offered wine to two shepherds who got drunk, hence the inscription in Greek "the first wine drinkers". The friends of the shepherds unfortunately killed Icarios because they thought he had poisoned them.
At the archaeological museum in Nicosia , there are numerous ancient oenochoes, pots and amphorae verifying the role and the importance of wine for the Cypriot society during the period of the 6th to the 2nd century BC. It is worth mentioning that on one item of pottery found in the ancient town of Marion near Polis Chrysochous, there is the inscription in Greek ?????? ??? ??? ??, which means "Be happy and drink well".
Cypriot wine as well as wines from the Aegean islands was traded throughout the known ancient world.
In antiquity, wine was stored in a clay vase called an amphora. The typical amphora looked like a root vegetable with a long neck. The bottom end was never flat; rather it was pointed or knob-like. The average Greek amphora had a capacity of about 40 litres, while in later times the average Roman amphora was 26 litres. Bars had special stands to hold their amphorae. These stands were usually tripods and were often placed against walls. Both the amphora and its tripod were robust enough to survive sea voyages, which facilitated the trade of wines throughout the Mediterranean Sea . The amphora also kept wine for long periods if properly sealed. Olive oil was often used as a sealant to avoid oxidation. The amphora had a key role in the advancement of the wine trade.
During the Hellenistic period, the Greeks introduced winemaking techniques to their colonies as far away as Italy , France and Spain , whilst Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire in the 4th century BC spread the wine trade eastwards. Greeks embraced wine drinking more enthusiastically than any culture before them. Wine became a drink not just for the elite, but for everyone. It is said that of all the vessels Greeks used daily, more than half related to the consumption of wine. Wine was considered to be a gift from Dionysus, the patron god and symbol of wine, and was used in religious rituals. And Greek doctors, including Hippocrates, prescribed it for their patients.
Greeks considered it barbaric to drink wine straight, so they diluted it in varying proportions with water. And they learned to add herbs and spices to mask spoilage. Another addition to this delicious taste profile was the flavour of pine resin. Greeks typically stored their wine in porous clay jugs, which had to be sealed to preserve the wine. They sealed the jugs with the resin of pine trees, which imparted its unique essence. Wine was important to the economies of Greek cities. It was traded within Greece and exported throughout the Mediterranean world. As Greece began to colonize the western Mediterranean , the Greeks took their grapevines and winemaking technology with them. The ruling dynasty of Ptolemies, the successors of Alexander, exploited the island's resources and were particularly fond of the Cypriot nectar. We know that under the reign of Ptolemy I, a great number of Jews left Palestine and settled in various places in the Eastern Mediterranean including Cyprus . The Jewish community of the island may have been charged with the duty of sending Cypriot wine to Jerusalem where it was used in sacrifices in the Temple .
The Romans who conquered Greece adopted Dionysus under the deity of Bacchus. The Romans showed preference to sweet rather than dry wine. The Ancient Romans placed great importance on the development and cultivation of wine. Like the Greeks, the Romans were wine-lovers and well-organized vine growers. They wrote handbooks on viticulture and wine production, and created a tradition still maintained in Italy .
Roman farmers changed from growing grain to grapes and combined Greek influence with their own farming background through viticulture. The Roman Empire is responsible for the spread of wine throughout Europe including such places as France , Spain , Italy and even parts of Britain . In 58 BC, Cyprus also became part of the Roman province of Alicia in Asia Minor . Many fine reports praising the Cypriot wines are found written during the age of the Roman Empire . Large quantities of wine amphorae have been unearthed in the Roman villas at Kato Paphos, as well as wooden barrels, pottery amphorae and leather skins which were commonly used for the transport of wine. Marc Anthony and Cleopatra are said to have toasted each other with it. Mark Anthony, Shakespeare informs us, gave Cyprus to Cleopatra with the words, "your sweetness, my love, is equal to Cyprus "Nama". Sinesius refers to Cyprus wine by calling it most "delicate", whilst Pliny, a Roman officer, encyclopaedist and author, found Cyprus wine superior to all others. Rome was a huge market for wine. The public's demand for wine at the time of the Roman Empire reached a new height. Many cities had wine bars on almost every street and festivals were held to ensure a good year's harvest of grapes.
Wine trade in the 4th and 5th centuries continued to expand with Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire . Dionysus had a huge cult following among followers of the Roman polytheistic religion, yet wine would play its integral part in another significant religion during the empire - Christianity. Many scholars today believe that Jesus Christ did indeed partake in the drinking of wine; a claim which seems to uphold his choice of wine as the substitute (or actual embodiment) of his blood at the Last Supper. With the fall of the Roman Empire, wine continued to be associated with Christianity and the Mediterranean . During the Byzantine years, the viticulture tradition continued to flourish. Orthodox Christianity was closely associated with the consumption of wine. During religious ceremonies, wine was blessed as part of the Holy Communion. The sweet Cyprus wine was in great demand.
In the middle ages, the Crusaders conquered the island and Cypriot wines became available in the western part of Europe . The earliest record of Cyprus wine being drunk in the west is dated at 1178 when Count Baldwin of Guines offered it to the Archbishop of Rheims. King Richard the Lionheart was also responsible for introducing it to England after he conquered the island in 1191. He sold Cyprus for 100,000 dinars to the Order of the Knights Templar, who established their "Grand Commandery" at Kolossi Castle . The Knights Templar acquired the vineyards on the southern hills of Troodos from Avdimou to Kilani in the North and Paphos in the West. However, a year later the Templars faced difficulties in the ruling of the island and sold it to the King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan. This started a new period for Cyprus under the Frankish domination.
When the fall of Acre in 1281 ended the Latin Christian presence in Palestine and Syria , the Knights Hospitallers moved their headquarters from Acre to Cyprus . Like all religious orders, the Knights Hospitallers (or Knights of St. John ) acquired land on a large scale and produced their own wine. They administered their estates based on the feudal system where the control of a group of vineyards was under the authority of a commandery. The development and promotion of wines was actively encouraged by the Hospitallers. It is worth noting that during this period, the name "Commandaria" was given to the sweet wine first described by Hesiodos. Since then, "Commandaria" has been the wine with the oldest tradition worldwide and is made in the same fashion when it was first introduced.
Among Commandaria's fans was King Philippe of France , who called it the "Apostle of Wines" in the 13th century. Francis I of France attempted to naturalise the Cyprus grapevine at Fontainebleau but without success. Rudolf von Sudheim, a German traveller who visited Cyprus between 1336 and 1341, mentioned the vineyards of Egadi as located in the mountainous area of Paphos. He also wrote that the nobles of Cyprus are the richest in the world, and that there are no greater or better drinkers than in Cyprus .
In the winter of 1363, the Master of the Vintners Company in the presence of the Kings of England, Scotland , France and Denmark feasted King Peter of Cyprus , during a visit to the city of London . The wines served were from Cyprus and were highly praised.
During the 300 years of Lusignan rule (1192-1489), wine production was refined and expanded. French historian De Mas Latrie calls Commandaria wine "une des especes superieures de ces vins justement renommes".
Estienne de Lusignan, writing in 1580, praises the wine of Cyprus as the best in the world. The mediaeval Cyprus wine industry was commercially the most important in the region. The Venetian period, which followed (1489-1571), gave new impetus to wine trading, and the island's wines became popular in the Latin world. The Venetians traded the wine from Cyprus to Venice and from there to the rest of Europe and England .
The Ottomans invaded Cyprus in 1571 and occupied it for over 300 years until 1878 when they ceded the island to Britain . During this period, little was done to help the wine growers. Wine consumption in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean , the birthplace of grape wine, had all but ceased (though some production continued). The rules of Islam forbid the drinking of wine, which is seen as a gift from God which man misused and therefore relinquished his right to drink. However, from the writing of several visitors, we can deduce that even under those difficult for viticulture times, their cultivation in Cyprus continued to provide a living for those residing in the mountain villages. In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned in small fields, wine grape growing wrote history and determined the distribution of human settlements.
The Ottoman Turks, following the Moslem tradition, discouraged winemaking and its consumption. They imposed heavy taxation on vineyards, prompting the villagers to destroy their vines, rather than allow the taxman to take possession of them. Wine was subject to an arbitrary triple taxation (10% levied on grapes, 10% on the wine and 8% on its exports). Eventually, the Cyprus wines fell into obscurity and lost their fame.
Seigneur de Villamont, from the Duchy of Brittany, wrote about the Turks in Cyprus in 1589: "And although their law forbids them wine, they will drink to excess without scruple or shame".
One of the few publications on Cyprus during the Ottoman Turkish occupation was a book written in 1772 by the Florentine Giovanni Mariti called "Del Vino di Cipro", in which special reference is made to Commandaria. In addition, from evidence given by Alexander Drummond, the British Consul in Aleppo who visited the island in May 1745, one can be assured that wine was still a major agricultural product for export. The year 1878 marked the handover of the island from Ottoman rule to the British Empire . The arrival of the British brought with it a revival in the winemaking industry.
To be continued..
Wine News and Information
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin 's birth, as well as 150 years since the publication of his thesis, "On the Origin of Species". Much has been made of the life and achievements of this great English biologist, but few fully appreciate his contribution to wine. As part of his study of climbing plants, Darwin had a particular fascination with grapevines. He was intrigued by the fact that the vines produce tendrils (for climbing) or bunches of grapes (for reproduction) opposite each leaf - a reminder that grapevines evolved in a forest habitat 60 million years ago. The vine could adapt to a shaded environment and climb to sunlight using tendrils, or, when at the top of the forest, produce fruit.
In The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants (1865), Darwin writes: "It is also an interesting fact that intermediate states between organs fitted for widely different functions, may be observed on the same individual plant of. the common vine; and these cases illustrate in a striking manner the principle of the gradual evolution of species." So, according to Darwin , the vine is a perfect example of evolutionary principles - fair praise indeed from the father of evolution. Today, grape growers the world over manage their vineyards to expose fruit to sunlight and so improve wine quality.
Another significant contribution of Darwin to the modern world of wine is probably his greatest. From the 1860s onwards, the vineyards of France planted the European wine grape "Vitis vinifera" which was increasingly challenged by the root louse phylloxera. This little yellow insect killed countless thousands of hectares of vines. Scientists at the time were hard pressed to find the cause of this devastation, and, once discovered, then to control the pest. The answer came from Darwin 's principles of evolution.
Given that the pest came from America where native vines grew without been affected, the obvious solution was to graft the sensitive European vines to rootstocks derived from American species. This approach was based on Darwin 's theories of adaptation and was proposed by French scientists Planchon and Millardet of Montpellier, and Riley and Munson in America , who are recognised as being instrumental in saving Europe from phylloxera. The principle of grafting on to phylloxera-resistant rootstocks is still used today, and is one of the best examples of biological control known to agriculture.
There are significant consequences that are already occurring because of climate change, since it affects almost every aspect of living of the human kind. It affects the agriculture industry with the unpredictable change in the weather. It also affects the temperature of the globe, which causes the permafrost to melt down increasing to sea water level and loss of inhabitants of some animals. Global warming is threatening the future of humankind. With the wine industry, it is highly important to be able to predict the climate because wine grapes are particularly affected by changing weather. Extreme weather conditions affect the quality of the grapes. Vintage quality of grapes is easily ruined by extended rainfall or when temperatures reach 35?C or more, causing the grapevine to shut down.
American farmers, according to a recent U.S.D.A. report, are already feeling the impacts. Climate change will lead to increased crop disease and pest prevalence, higher livestock mortality due to hotter summers and more rapid weed growth due to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. There are significant consequences that are already occurring as a result of climate change, and they are only likely to get worse if action isn't taken. The United States Department of Agriculture will devote an additional $90 million over the next four years to climate change research and will also join at least 21 other nations in a new international research cooperative focused on climate change and agriculture.
Monolithos Monthly News
To everything, there is a season, and this is most true in a vineyard. Each season brings a new joy and challenge. Maintaining a grape vineyard is a year-round labour of love for grape farmers. In late autumn, the vines' long shoots are cut off and the leaves turn brown and fall. In December, depending on the local weather, the vines enter a dormant stage. Early January is the time to commence pruning to help control the yield and quality of the coming year's grape harvest. Pruning is cutting the long, dry vines to allow for new growth. If not pruned back, the number of buds that would bloom and turn into fruit would be of lower quality. This task should be completed before spring and especially before the last few frosts. Waiting too long to trim the vines will make them more susceptible to damaging buds. During this process, great care must be taken to prune efficiently, yet not to remove too much of the vine as this will limit the crop.
At the winery, work on the stabilisation of the 2009 vintage white wines is underway. All 2008 wines have been bottled and are available for tasting and purchasing.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or sample any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his "Fig Tree Villa" in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
Regards from all of us here at Monolithos and always remember:
With wine and hope, anything is possible.
Spanish Proverb
It's January 2010 - the new millennium is not so new any more. We are already through the first decade. Whatever the custom, whatever the country, no matter where we live, the New Year signifies a new start, a new life. People feel a sense of rebirth and renewal facing a new year and want to drop bad habits and embrace new, healthy ones. We take the opportunity to throw out the mistakes of the past year and start anew. We wish each other good luck and promise ourselves to do better in the coming 12 months.
Making wine is probably as old as humankind itself is. The first written tale of wine is said to be in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Apparently, Noah planted vines and made wine. Scientists have dated fossilized grape vines at 60 million years old. Scientists and historians alike believe that wine was not invented; it was more discovered by chance. They believe that ancient people made the discovery of wine when they found their grapes had spoiled and fermented, creating fermented grape juice. There is a story frequently quoted by many folklorists about a Persian Princess who is credited for the discovery of wine. According to this fable, the Princess - having lost the favour of the King - attempted to poison herself. She went into the basement of the palace and found a jar of grapes, which were fermenting and giving out heat and gas. She assumed that the jar contained poison so she treated herself with as much spoiled grapes as she could. She subsequently became intoxicated and giddy and fell asleep. When she woke up, she found that she her depression disappeared and felt joyous. She eventually told the king of this magical discovery. The King liked her new attitude and after tasting himself the fermented juice, he felt so cheerful that he admitted her back into his good graces.
Historians believe that Neolithic man gave the world winemaking. Not only had the domestication of the grapevine permitted him to take advantage of the potentials of this innovation, but also the development of ceramics. The manufacture of pottery, the earliest of which appeared in 6000 BC, by the Neolithic people was the technological advance that made winemaking possible. The first traces of the production of wine were found around the Caspian Sea and in Mesopotamia, near present-day Iran . Very soon, the cultivation of the vine and the production of wine spread west from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean coast and Egypt .
Texts from tombs in ancient Egypt prove that wine was in use there around 2700 to 2500 BC. Wine was particularly popular as an offering to the gods - and inevitably, gods became patrons of the drink. The Jews had Noah, the Greeks had Dionysos, the Indians had God Soma, the Egyptians had Osiris, and the Romans Bacchus. In Greek mythology, Dionysus, son of Zeus and his mistress Semele, are named as the inventors of wine. The high regard for wine from the ancient Greeks is best illustrated in a quote from the famed historian Thucydides: "The peoples of the Mediterranean began to emerge from barbarism when they learned to cultivate the olive and the grape."
One of the oldest winemaking regions in the world is Cyprus . A study of the evolution of wine in Cyprus reveals three broad and distinct periods, or three leaps of history that have left their marked footprints in the development of the island.
The first period lasted several thousand years, from the time the cultivation of the vine appeared on the scene till the time the Ottomans discouraged winemaking and its consumption. The second period begins with the arrival of the British, which triggered the revival of the wine industry and lasted nearly a century. The third is the period we are currently experiencing, a period of rapid growth - a wine-revolution that aims at providing the international market with world-class wines with Cypriot identity.
The First Period (3500BC - 1898 A.D)
Cypriot wines trace their roots as far back as the Neolithic times, and possibly even before that. Exactly how far back wine production in Cyprus goes is unknown. Excavations on the outskirts of Erimi village unearthed (amongst other artefacts) pottery fragments dated to the chalcolithic period (between 3500 BC-3000 BC). In 2005, a team of Italian archaeologists led by Maria-Rosaria Belgiorno examined the chemical signatures of 18 of these. Twelve showed traces of tartaric acid (a component of wine), proving that the 5,500-year-old vases were used for wine. Another archaeological excavation near the village of Pyrgos on the outskirts of Limassol led to the discovery of a Bronze Age (2500-2000 BC) perfumery. Near this perfumery, an olive press, a winery, and copper smelting works were also discovered. Wine containers and even the seeds of grapes were unearthed.
The island's winemaking tradition is already well documented, but these latest discoveries prove that Cypriots were the region's oldest winemakers. Wine was being traded at least as early as 2300 BC, the date of a shipwreck carrying over 2,500 amphorae, discovered in 1999, lying on the seabed off Cyprus ' southern shore. These findings predate winemaking by ancient Greeks by at least 1,500 years.
After the arrival of the Mycenaeans in around 1400 BC and the mass waves of Achaean Greeks, the Greek language, religion and customs spread throughout the island. It was during this period that wine drinking became the pre-eminent beverage and played an important social and cultural role in the daily life of the ancient Cypriots. At Enkomi on the South East coast of Cyprus, a 12th century BC building with benches along its walls, one of the most imposing public buildings of this Late Bronze Age town, was considered by the excavator as the main reception hall where feasts used to take place and wine was available. In an adjoining room, large storage jars were found which were used for oil, wine or grain. At Maa-Palaeokastro, a 12th century BC settlement in the Paphos District, excavations have brought to light a large number of drinking cups of Mycenaean type. This settlement has been identified as a military outpost where immigrants from the Aegean settled around 1200 BC. The drinking cups are no doubt indicative of what they did in their spare time.
The fame of Cyprus wines spread throughout the ancient world and were richly praised and immortalized by contemporary poets, historians and artists. There was praise for Cyprus wines in Homer's poems and, thanks to his writings, we have precious insights into the life and customs of ancient Greeks. The Cypriot poet Stassinos, in his epic songs about Cyprus , mentions the myth of Anios and his three daughters Oeno, Spermo and Elaida, who had the magical powers of producing wine, wheat and oil respectively. Homer and Pindaros paid tribute to Cyprus wines, and in 735 BC, Hesiod described the manufacturing process of the sweet "Nama" of Cyprus .
"Leave the grapes ten days in the sun, ten nights and then five days in the shade and eight more in the jar".
Reference to the Cypriot wines is made also by Euripides, one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens . He wrote of large numbers of pilgrimages visiting Cyprus to follow the cult of Aphrodite and to taste the island's "Nama" wines. Cypriot wines are also mentioned in the Bible. In Solomon's "Song of Songs", the verse "My beloved is unto me as a henna flower in the vineyards of Egadi" makes reference to a village in Cyprus . The people of Ancient Egypt loved wine and were among the first to record the harvest of grapes on stone tablets and the walls of their tombs. The Egyptians, and particularly the Pharoahs of Egypt, showed special preference and affection to Cypriot wines.
In the Hellenistic period, wine came to embody Greek culture and became more widely available. Greek citizens spent much of their time discussing wine and finding ways of making it even more enjoyable. Wine was used not only in the Symposia, the Greek drinking parties, but also medicinally to clean wounds and as a safer drink than water. They also traded different wines among the many Greek islands. Cypriot wines were in great demand by the ancient Greeks, and later by the Romans. In many early Greek books, Cyprus is referred to as "Evinos" - or the island of good wine.
Wine also played a role in the religion of the Greek dominions, with Dionysus as its specific deity. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was also the God of Ecstasy and his cult was one of the mystery religions. He produced the first wine from the vine, and spread the art of tending grapes, but he also had a dual side to his nature - on the one hand he could bring about joy and divine ecstasy, and on the other hand, brutal unthinking rage, both reflecting the nature of wine. No other god has ever been more joyfully celebrated than Dionysus and his Roman replica, Bacchus. Dionysus was one of the most important gods in everyday life, and was associated with several key concepts. One was rebirth after death. His dismemberment by the Titans and return to life is symbolically echoed in tending vines. Each year the vines are pruned back sharply and left to become dormant through the winter, ready to bear fruit in the following spring.
The mosaics in the House of Dionysus at Paphos depict the story of the first mortal Icarios to be taught how to make wine. The teacher was Dionysus, the god of wine himself. According to mosaic picture and mythology, Icarios offered wine to two shepherds who got drunk, hence the inscription in Greek "the first wine drinkers". The friends of the shepherds unfortunately killed Icarios because they thought he had poisoned them.
At the archaeological museum in Nicosia , there are numerous ancient oenochoes, pots and amphorae verifying the role and the importance of wine for the Cypriot society during the period of the 6th to the 2nd century BC. It is worth mentioning that on one item of pottery found in the ancient town of Marion near Polis Chrysochous, there is the inscription in Greek ?????? ??? ??? ??, which means "Be happy and drink well".
Cypriot wine as well as wines from the Aegean islands was traded throughout the known ancient world.
In antiquity, wine was stored in a clay vase called an amphora. The typical amphora looked like a root vegetable with a long neck. The bottom end was never flat; rather it was pointed or knob-like. The average Greek amphora had a capacity of about 40 litres, while in later times the average Roman amphora was 26 litres. Bars had special stands to hold their amphorae. These stands were usually tripods and were often placed against walls. Both the amphora and its tripod were robust enough to survive sea voyages, which facilitated the trade of wines throughout the Mediterranean Sea . The amphora also kept wine for long periods if properly sealed. Olive oil was often used as a sealant to avoid oxidation. The amphora had a key role in the advancement of the wine trade.
During the Hellenistic period, the Greeks introduced winemaking techniques to their colonies as far away as Italy , France and Spain , whilst Alexander the Great's conquest of the Persian Empire in the 4th century BC spread the wine trade eastwards. Greeks embraced wine drinking more enthusiastically than any culture before them. Wine became a drink not just for the elite, but for everyone. It is said that of all the vessels Greeks used daily, more than half related to the consumption of wine. Wine was considered to be a gift from Dionysus, the patron god and symbol of wine, and was used in religious rituals. And Greek doctors, including Hippocrates, prescribed it for their patients.
Greeks considered it barbaric to drink wine straight, so they diluted it in varying proportions with water. And they learned to add herbs and spices to mask spoilage. Another addition to this delicious taste profile was the flavour of pine resin. Greeks typically stored their wine in porous clay jugs, which had to be sealed to preserve the wine. They sealed the jugs with the resin of pine trees, which imparted its unique essence. Wine was important to the economies of Greek cities. It was traded within Greece and exported throughout the Mediterranean world. As Greece began to colonize the western Mediterranean , the Greeks took their grapevines and winemaking technology with them. The ruling dynasty of Ptolemies, the successors of Alexander, exploited the island's resources and were particularly fond of the Cypriot nectar. We know that under the reign of Ptolemy I, a great number of Jews left Palestine and settled in various places in the Eastern Mediterranean including Cyprus . The Jewish community of the island may have been charged with the duty of sending Cypriot wine to Jerusalem where it was used in sacrifices in the Temple .
The Romans who conquered Greece adopted Dionysus under the deity of Bacchus. The Romans showed preference to sweet rather than dry wine. The Ancient Romans placed great importance on the development and cultivation of wine. Like the Greeks, the Romans were wine-lovers and well-organized vine growers. They wrote handbooks on viticulture and wine production, and created a tradition still maintained in Italy .
Roman farmers changed from growing grain to grapes and combined Greek influence with their own farming background through viticulture. The Roman Empire is responsible for the spread of wine throughout Europe including such places as France , Spain , Italy and even parts of Britain . In 58 BC, Cyprus also became part of the Roman province of Alicia in Asia Minor . Many fine reports praising the Cypriot wines are found written during the age of the Roman Empire . Large quantities of wine amphorae have been unearthed in the Roman villas at Kato Paphos, as well as wooden barrels, pottery amphorae and leather skins which were commonly used for the transport of wine. Marc Anthony and Cleopatra are said to have toasted each other with it. Mark Anthony, Shakespeare informs us, gave Cyprus to Cleopatra with the words, "your sweetness, my love, is equal to Cyprus "Nama". Sinesius refers to Cyprus wine by calling it most "delicate", whilst Pliny, a Roman officer, encyclopaedist and author, found Cyprus wine superior to all others. Rome was a huge market for wine. The public's demand for wine at the time of the Roman Empire reached a new height. Many cities had wine bars on almost every street and festivals were held to ensure a good year's harvest of grapes.
Wine trade in the 4th and 5th centuries continued to expand with Constantinople as the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire . Dionysus had a huge cult following among followers of the Roman polytheistic religion, yet wine would play its integral part in another significant religion during the empire - Christianity. Many scholars today believe that Jesus Christ did indeed partake in the drinking of wine; a claim which seems to uphold his choice of wine as the substitute (or actual embodiment) of his blood at the Last Supper. With the fall of the Roman Empire, wine continued to be associated with Christianity and the Mediterranean . During the Byzantine years, the viticulture tradition continued to flourish. Orthodox Christianity was closely associated with the consumption of wine. During religious ceremonies, wine was blessed as part of the Holy Communion. The sweet Cyprus wine was in great demand.
In the middle ages, the Crusaders conquered the island and Cypriot wines became available in the western part of Europe . The earliest record of Cyprus wine being drunk in the west is dated at 1178 when Count Baldwin of Guines offered it to the Archbishop of Rheims. King Richard the Lionheart was also responsible for introducing it to England after he conquered the island in 1191. He sold Cyprus for 100,000 dinars to the Order of the Knights Templar, who established their "Grand Commandery" at Kolossi Castle . The Knights Templar acquired the vineyards on the southern hills of Troodos from Avdimou to Kilani in the North and Paphos in the West. However, a year later the Templars faced difficulties in the ruling of the island and sold it to the King of Jerusalem, Guy de Lusignan. This started a new period for Cyprus under the Frankish domination.
When the fall of Acre in 1281 ended the Latin Christian presence in Palestine and Syria , the Knights Hospitallers moved their headquarters from Acre to Cyprus . Like all religious orders, the Knights Hospitallers (or Knights of St. John ) acquired land on a large scale and produced their own wine. They administered their estates based on the feudal system where the control of a group of vineyards was under the authority of a commandery. The development and promotion of wines was actively encouraged by the Hospitallers. It is worth noting that during this period, the name "Commandaria" was given to the sweet wine first described by Hesiodos. Since then, "Commandaria" has been the wine with the oldest tradition worldwide and is made in the same fashion when it was first introduced.
Among Commandaria's fans was King Philippe of France , who called it the "Apostle of Wines" in the 13th century. Francis I of France attempted to naturalise the Cyprus grapevine at Fontainebleau but without success. Rudolf von Sudheim, a German traveller who visited Cyprus between 1336 and 1341, mentioned the vineyards of Egadi as located in the mountainous area of Paphos. He also wrote that the nobles of Cyprus are the richest in the world, and that there are no greater or better drinkers than in Cyprus .
In the winter of 1363, the Master of the Vintners Company in the presence of the Kings of England, Scotland , France and Denmark feasted King Peter of Cyprus , during a visit to the city of London . The wines served were from Cyprus and were highly praised.
During the 300 years of Lusignan rule (1192-1489), wine production was refined and expanded. French historian De Mas Latrie calls Commandaria wine "une des especes superieures de ces vins justement renommes".
Estienne de Lusignan, writing in 1580, praises the wine of Cyprus as the best in the world. The mediaeval Cyprus wine industry was commercially the most important in the region. The Venetian period, which followed (1489-1571), gave new impetus to wine trading, and the island's wines became popular in the Latin world. The Venetians traded the wine from Cyprus to Venice and from there to the rest of Europe and England .
The Ottomans invaded Cyprus in 1571 and occupied it for over 300 years until 1878 when they ceded the island to Britain . During this period, little was done to help the wine growers. Wine consumption in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean , the birthplace of grape wine, had all but ceased (though some production continued). The rules of Islam forbid the drinking of wine, which is seen as a gift from God which man misused and therefore relinquished his right to drink. However, from the writing of several visitors, we can deduce that even under those difficult for viticulture times, their cultivation in Cyprus continued to provide a living for those residing in the mountain villages. In these areas, where the soil is not sufficiently fertile for agriculture and the land is fractioned in small fields, wine grape growing wrote history and determined the distribution of human settlements.
The Ottoman Turks, following the Moslem tradition, discouraged winemaking and its consumption. They imposed heavy taxation on vineyards, prompting the villagers to destroy their vines, rather than allow the taxman to take possession of them. Wine was subject to an arbitrary triple taxation (10% levied on grapes, 10% on the wine and 8% on its exports). Eventually, the Cyprus wines fell into obscurity and lost their fame.
Seigneur de Villamont, from the Duchy of Brittany, wrote about the Turks in Cyprus in 1589: "And although their law forbids them wine, they will drink to excess without scruple or shame".
One of the few publications on Cyprus during the Ottoman Turkish occupation was a book written in 1772 by the Florentine Giovanni Mariti called "Del Vino di Cipro", in which special reference is made to Commandaria. In addition, from evidence given by Alexander Drummond, the British Consul in Aleppo who visited the island in May 1745, one can be assured that wine was still a major agricultural product for export. The year 1878 marked the handover of the island from Ottoman rule to the British Empire . The arrival of the British brought with it a revival in the winemaking industry.
To be continued..
Wine News and Information
This year marks the 200th anniversary of Darwin 's birth, as well as 150 years since the publication of his thesis, "On the Origin of Species". Much has been made of the life and achievements of this great English biologist, but few fully appreciate his contribution to wine. As part of his study of climbing plants, Darwin had a particular fascination with grapevines. He was intrigued by the fact that the vines produce tendrils (for climbing) or bunches of grapes (for reproduction) opposite each leaf - a reminder that grapevines evolved in a forest habitat 60 million years ago. The vine could adapt to a shaded environment and climb to sunlight using tendrils, or, when at the top of the forest, produce fruit.
In The Movement and Habits of Climbing Plants (1865), Darwin writes: "It is also an interesting fact that intermediate states between organs fitted for widely different functions, may be observed on the same individual plant of. the common vine; and these cases illustrate in a striking manner the principle of the gradual evolution of species." So, according to Darwin , the vine is a perfect example of evolutionary principles - fair praise indeed from the father of evolution. Today, grape growers the world over manage their vineyards to expose fruit to sunlight and so improve wine quality.
Another significant contribution of Darwin to the modern world of wine is probably his greatest. From the 1860s onwards, the vineyards of France planted the European wine grape "Vitis vinifera" which was increasingly challenged by the root louse phylloxera. This little yellow insect killed countless thousands of hectares of vines. Scientists at the time were hard pressed to find the cause of this devastation, and, once discovered, then to control the pest. The answer came from Darwin 's principles of evolution.
Given that the pest came from America where native vines grew without been affected, the obvious solution was to graft the sensitive European vines to rootstocks derived from American species. This approach was based on Darwin 's theories of adaptation and was proposed by French scientists Planchon and Millardet of Montpellier, and Riley and Munson in America , who are recognised as being instrumental in saving Europe from phylloxera. The principle of grafting on to phylloxera-resistant rootstocks is still used today, and is one of the best examples of biological control known to agriculture.
There are significant consequences that are already occurring because of climate change, since it affects almost every aspect of living of the human kind. It affects the agriculture industry with the unpredictable change in the weather. It also affects the temperature of the globe, which causes the permafrost to melt down increasing to sea water level and loss of inhabitants of some animals. Global warming is threatening the future of humankind. With the wine industry, it is highly important to be able to predict the climate because wine grapes are particularly affected by changing weather. Extreme weather conditions affect the quality of the grapes. Vintage quality of grapes is easily ruined by extended rainfall or when temperatures reach 35?C or more, causing the grapevine to shut down.
American farmers, according to a recent U.S.D.A. report, are already feeling the impacts. Climate change will lead to increased crop disease and pest prevalence, higher livestock mortality due to hotter summers and more rapid weed growth due to elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. There are significant consequences that are already occurring as a result of climate change, and they are only likely to get worse if action isn't taken. The United States Department of Agriculture will devote an additional $90 million over the next four years to climate change research and will also join at least 21 other nations in a new international research cooperative focused on climate change and agriculture.
Monolithos Monthly News
To everything, there is a season, and this is most true in a vineyard. Each season brings a new joy and challenge. Maintaining a grape vineyard is a year-round labour of love for grape farmers. In late autumn, the vines' long shoots are cut off and the leaves turn brown and fall. In December, depending on the local weather, the vines enter a dormant stage. Early January is the time to commence pruning to help control the yield and quality of the coming year's grape harvest. Pruning is cutting the long, dry vines to allow for new growth. If not pruned back, the number of buds that would bloom and turn into fruit would be of lower quality. This task should be completed before spring and especially before the last few frosts. Waiting too long to trim the vines will make them more susceptible to damaging buds. During this process, great care must be taken to prune efficiently, yet not to remove too much of the vine as this will limit the crop.
At the winery, work on the stabilisation of the 2009 vintage white wines is underway. All 2008 wines have been bottled and are available for tasting and purchasing.
If at any time you are passing near the village of Pachna and wish to visit the winery or sample any of our products, Martin Wood will be pleased to meet and assist you at his "Fig Tree Villa" in Pachna, so do not hesitate to phone him at 25-816212 or 99-165995.
Regards from all of us here at Monolithos and always remember:
With wine and hope, anything is possible.
Spanish Proverb
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