Cheers (or Yamas) to Santorini!

It amused me late in the afternoon when I realized that on our first full day in Santorini, without a schedule or a need to get on a tour bus, the first thing we did was…take a tour. But it was an entirely different sort of tour than we’ve been taking the past several weeks. And it was fantastic!

We joined three other couples in a luxurious minivan for a personally guided tour of Santorini wineries. Vaios was our guide and he knew his wine – history, cultivation, production, flavors, international and local. He toured us around the island and we stopped at three wineries (there are nine on the island). One was amongst the oldest on the island, dating back to 1903. Another was one doing very typical Santorini wines with a white grape we had never heard of (called Assyrtiko), and the third was the only guy on the island trying to grow grapes vertically.

I could go on and on about all the cool stuff we learned and tasted but perhaps the most universally interesting tidbit is that Santorini is the only place in the world where grapes are grown like this:

Instead of being trained on trellises and posts and growing up and out, the grape plants here are grown in what they call baskets. They train the vines to grown in circles such that the trunks end up looking like wreaths. The grapes themselves are naturally tucked in amongst the leaves. Vineyards here look like erratic rows of ground-hugging bushes instead of perfectly straight, thin rows of leaves.

The underside of the grape vine.

So why this unique growing style? It’s all about the climate and growing conditions and environment (something winos call “terroir”). Santorini is one big volcano so the soil is very rocky and porous. Also, the island only gets about 30 days of rain so it is very dry here. There are no wells, there is no irrigation (all drinking water is shipped in and all “service” water is desalinated sea water). It is also very windy at times. So the basket approach does a number of things to help the grapes grow. By being low to the ground, the plants are protected from the wind. By being in clumps, the fruit is protected by the leaves from the hot sun. The clumps also create a mini-microclimate for each plant to efficiently collect and use the morning dew and any overnight moisture in the air; whatever it grabs from the air is the entire water source for the plant.

We could definitely taste the impact of this unique “terroir.” The wines here (mostly white) have a distinct earthy, minerally taste. We liked them quite a bit. We also liked the red grape they are experimenting with (called Mavrotragano). What was most amazing, though, and what will be coming home with us, is the Vinsanto. OH MY!

Vinsanto is a dessert wine using techniques unique to Santorini. It is made from white grapes (the Assyrtiko again) that are laid out on mats and allowed to dry in the sun for 5-15 days, turning into little raisins. Then they are pressed and stored like any other grapes would be and the result is an amber colored wine that is very slightly thick and tastes like caramel and oranges and dried apricots. One very special bottle is coming home with us. We were told once we open the bottle, we could store it in the fridge for up to three months. Yeah, it’s not gonna last nearly that long.

Us in a Santorini vineyard

The rest of our day was spent wandering, eating, taking in the views, loving being right here right now. Tomorrow is our last full day before we start the long haul home. We plan to spend it hanging out by the pool at our hotel, breathing deeply, and being grateful.