Vintage 2002

wet and cool · the weakest vintage in our series

Nationwide 4.0 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: medium

Macedonia

Naoussa · PDO – Red 3.0 · White 4.5 (Confidence: medium)

Central Greece

Attika · PGI – Red 4.5 · White 5.0 (Confidence: low)

Peloponnese

Nemea · PDO – Red 3.0 (Confidence: medium)

Mantinia · PDO – White 4.5 (Confidence: medium)

Cyclades

Santorini · PDO – Red 5.0 · White 6.5 (Confidence: low)

Crete

Kreta · PGI – Red 5.0 · White 5.5 (Confidence: low)

Peloponnese outside Nemea and Mantinia 4.0 (as an overall score without separating by color)

4.0 nationwide – no other vintage in our series sits this low, and the two threes for Naoussa and Nemea are the lowest individual scores of all.

The reason is water. 2002 was a decidedly wet, rather cool year, and it hit hardest in the two regions on which Greek red wine rests.

Naoussa and Nemea – 3.0 each

In the continental north it was one of the rainiest vintages on record there. The wetness persisted through the entire growing season, right into ripening, and temperatures stayed low throughout. What followed is every Xinomavro producer's nightmare: extreme fungal pressure with botrytis and sour rot, along with ripening that never finished. Phenolic ripeness was not achieved, the rot forced earlier, selective picking, and waiting was not an option – in the end, green tannins, diluted wines, hardly any aging potential.

In Nemea, the same rain hit the thin-skinned Agiorgitiko at harvest. It responded with gray rot and with wines that lacked substance.

How serious the situation was is shown by the same decision as in 2006 and 2001, only more drastic: One top producer in the north did not bottle his flagship red wine at all.

Santorini – White 6.5

The highest score on this page belongs to the place the rain never reached. The island did not have an extreme year, but its usual pattern: very dry, windy, early harvest, no reports of rain or rot. The Assyrtiko came in structured and long-lived.

In Mantinia it was the opposite. The Moschofilero there, at altitude, is not picked until mid-October and was thus exposed to the autumn rain the longest – diluted and less aromatic.

Our wines

A single wine, and it comes, of all places, from the area that weathered this year best: the Kamaritis from Koutsogiannopoulos Winery in the Cyclades, a sweet wine made from sun-dried grapes, with 96 points.

It does not contradict the 4.0; rather, it shows where that figure does not apply. A sweet wine from a dry, windy island is immune to exactly what broke this vintage on the mainland.

All tasting notes from 2002

· Koutsogiannopoulos Winery Kamaritis · 96

Vintage 2001 · 2002 · Vintage 2003 | All vintages