Vintage 2015

the great white wine year · 180 millimeters in four hours · hail over Crete

Nationwide 6.5 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: medium

Macedonia

Naoussa · PDO – Red 6.5 · White 7.5 (Confidence: medium)

Goumenissa · PDO – Red 5.5 · White 7.0 (Confidence: medium)

Amyndeon · PDO – Red 4.0 (Confidence: medium)

Epirus

Zitsa · PDO – Red 6.5 · White 6.5 (Confidence: low)

Thessaly

Meteora · PGI – Red 7.0 · White 7.0 (Confidence: medium)

Rapsani · PDO – Red 6.5 (Confidence: low)

Karditsa · PGI – Red 5.5 · White 5.5 (Confidence: medium)

Central Greece

Attika · PGI – Red 6.5 · White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Atalanti and Opountia Lokridas · PGI – Red 6.5 · White 6.5 (Confidence: medium)

Peloponnese

Mantinia · PDO – White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Nemea · PDO – Red 7.5 · White 6.0 (Confidence: medium)

Cyclades

Santorini and Cyclades · PDO/PGI – Red 7.0 · White 8.5 (Confidence: medium)

Drama 7.0 · Pangeon 7.0 · Epanomi 7.0 · Crete 6.5 · Peloponnese outside Nemea and Mantinia 7.0 (each as an overall value without separation by color)

The Attika value applies to the plain around Athens, not to Lokris in Phthiotis; that carries its own.

It was a warm, on the whole balanced year, without the once-in-a-century extremes and without the ten-day heat waves that later became the rule. Summer set in somewhat later than usual; from July onward, daytime highs stayed almost continuously above 34 to 36 degrees, in the southeast at times muggy with high humidity. Nothing about it suggested a divided year.

It was divided by three rain events, and each of them fell on a different place and into a different harvest window. On August 18, more than 180 millimeters fell over Macedonia in four hours. In mid-August, a severe storm with hail moved across Crete. And in the second half of September, rain fell over Central Greece, Thessaly and the western Macedonian highlands, after the first half of September had been very hot.

Whoever had already harvested had a great year. That was, almost everywhere, the whites. Assyrtiko on Santorini was in the cellar in early August, a week ahead of the usual date; Savatiano in Attika came in dry before the September rain; Moschofilero on the Mantinia plateau had cool nights and no water at the wrong time. These three stand at 8.5 and twice 8.0, and they are the reason why, in retrospect, 2015 is cited as the electric white wine vintage of the decade – the benchmark against which the 2025 was measured ten years later.

The red side is the other half of the same story. The late-ripening, rot-prone Xinomavro was still out in the vineyards of Macedonia when the water came. On Crete, the hail struck ripening grapes. Only the Peloponnese was spared all of it. Between the highest and the lowest value on this page lie four and a half points – together with 2007, the widest spread in our series.

Santorini – White 8.5

The wine you think of when 2015 comes up. A mild winter with decent water supply was followed, for the island, by unusually favorable rainfall in May and June, which secured a healthy fruit set. July brought the cooling Meltemi winds, August and September remained moderately warm without an extreme heat wave, and there was neither rot nor rain at harvest.

Picking took place about a week earlier than the decade average, and this head start was the decisive factor: it saved the acidity. What came into the cellar was fully ripe and concentrated and had nevertheless kept the cool, saline citrus tension the island is known for – textbook. The quantity was fifteen to twenty percent below normal, a decline, but not a collapse. The island's red varieties, Mavrotragano and Mandilaria, came in clean and play the supporting role in this vintage.

Mantinia – White 8.0

On the Arcadian plateau, at around 650 meters, everything hinges on the amplitude between day and night. In 2015 it was large enough to carry the acid-driven, late-ripening Moschofilero through the warm summer. What came of it is bright, well structured and aromatically powerful; one estate of the appellation calls the vintage very special and places it alongside the excellent 2013.

Attika – Red 6.5 · White 8.0

A clean split, and it runs along the calendar. Savatiano ripens early to mid-early and tolerates drought better than almost any other white variety in the country; it had been picked before the second half of September turned wet. The result was good to very good whites and retsinas, and the region's old vines proved heat-resilient.

A point and a half lower stand the reds. They ripen later, and for them the rain fell right in the middle of the critical phase. Afterwards, cool winds dried out the situation again and stabilized it – those who selected could save what could be saved.

Lokris

In the landscape on the North Euboean Gulf, the cold held on for a long time. A cold winter and a cool, rainy spring delayed budbreak; only July, very hot, caught up on sugar accumulation, and August cooled down again. The grapes came in very healthy apart from isolated cases, and ripening proceeded favorably. The higher sites yielded 500 to 700 kilograms per stremma, the plain 800 to 1,100.

Unlike in Attika, red and white do not diverge here; the value in both colors matches the nationwide one.

Nemea – Red 7.5 · White 6.0

The only bright spot on the red side, and with 7.5 the highest red value on this page. The Peloponnese had a rather dry, unremarkable winter, a regular budbreak and then the Europe-wide hot, dry summer, which hit Greece more mildly than Central Europe but depressed yields everywhere. Picking took place under sunny, dry conditions, without rain, without rot, without hail.

For Agiorgitiko, that means small berries, high concentration and deep color. But it does not mean the same thing everywhere: in the warm valley-floor sites, ripening tipped into cooked fruit, and the value applies to the cooler high-elevation parcels between 450 and 650 meters. The valley floor lies well below it. For the rest of the peninsula, outside Nemea and Mantinia, the vintage stands at 7.0.

Xinomavro – Naoussa 6.5 · Goumenissa 5.5 · Amyndeon 4.0

Well into August, the north looked like a great year. Winter had replenished the water reserves, temperatures ran normal through April, May was dry and the pressure from downy mildew correspondingly low, and a cooler summer than usual was heading toward healthy, evenly colored fruit. Then came August 18.

More than 180 millimeters in four hours, followed by dry late summer again. For the late-ripening Xinomavro of Naoussa, this water input came at the worst conceivable moment: dilution, uneven ripeness, increased rot pressure. What came of it is fruity, charming and approachable early – not the vintage you lay down. The whites of the area, picked before the rain, stand one point higher.

On the southeastern slopes of Paiko, where Goumenissa blends Xinomavro with Negoska, it did not rain once but all year long: in winter, during the growing season and even during the harvest of the late varieties, plus hail in places. Yields fell by ten to forty percent. The early and mid-early reds gained plenty of color and volume, the late ones stayed thin; the whites, however, turned out aromatically complex and full-bodied and sit a point and a half above the reds.

The 4.0 for Amyndeon is the lowest value on this page, two and a half points below the national average. The highland at 590 to 750 meters is the coldest wine region in Greece and always the last to harvest, and the PDO knows only one variety. After September 19, extreme rain fell there on grapes still hanging, combined with warmth and a lack of air circulation. Botrytis spread across large areas and hit exactly the late-ripening vines – Xinomavro and Roditis. Those who had Merlot or Syrah standing got away.

Karditsa – 5.5

One point below the national value, and the cause is the same September rain that came down over Thessaly. In the plain around Karditsa, it fell at the worst conceivable moment: in the middle of the harvest. Sugar levels lagged behind, and yields were a quarter below the usual.

Rapsani – Red 6.5

On the eastern slope of Mount Olympus, harvest does not begin until the second half of September, and the red blend of Xinomavro, Krassato and Stavroto is late in all three of its parts. It was thus standing exactly in the window in which Thessaly turned from very hot to very wet. The vintage there stands at the national value. It does not apply to the other appellations of Thessaly.

The Northeast – Drama 7.0 · Pangeon 7.0 · Epanomi 7.0

Three landscapes, one value, each half a point above the national average. In Epanomi on the Thermaic Gulf, the sequence of events is precisely documented, and it explains why the northeast escaped the Xinomavro drama: a cold winter, a cool spring, budbreak and flowering twelve days later than usual. The June rain delayed ripening further without building up disease pressure. What came in during autumn was aromatically intense, had good acidity and was twenty percent more than usual – full wines with rich varietal aromatics, from a vintage that ran late from start to finish.

Crete – 6.5

The exception on the downside. In mid-August, a severe storm moved across the island, and it brought not only heavy rain but hail that struck the ripening grapes. Afterwards, rot spread. Up to forty percent of the total harvest was lost, and individual estates lost seventy. This was not a quantity problem with no effect on quality, but real damage to what remained.

What mattered afterwards was the harvest date, and in reverse to the rest of the country. The early-picked whites, Vilana and the early Vidiano, stood in the middle of the storm and suffered most. The late-picked high-elevation Vidiano and above all the thick-skinned late reds – Liatiko, Kotsifali and the very late-harvested Mandilaria – had weeks to dry out and came off considerably better. On Crete, the reds of this vintage therefore sit above the whites.

Our wines

We have tasted eleven Greek wines from 2015, from ten producers. The median is 92 points.

All eleven are red. Of what made this vintage great, we hold not a single bottle: no white wine, nothing from Santorini, nothing from Mantinia. And just as little from the other end – from Amyndeon, Goumenissa and Rapsani we have nothing from this year.

What we have is, of all places, Crete – and at the very top. The highest-rated wine of the vintage, with 96 points, comes from the region with the weakest report: the Mirabello of Domaine Economou, a blend of sixty percent Liatiko and forty percent Mandilaria, nine years after the harvest in the glass and anything but tired – ripe plum, caramel, leather, cedar, and tannins you land on like a rubber dinghy on water. Those are exactly the two thick-skinned late varieties that survived the hail. The same goes for the two wines from Silva Daskalaki Winery, which we had side by side on the same day: the Enstikto, from seventy percent Kotsifali and thirty percent Syrah, with 94 points, dense and tarry down to a finish of wet hemp rope, and just behind it, with 92, the Sera, half Mandilaria, half Cabernet Sauvignon, a tannin bomb with astonishingly fresh cornelian cherry. Two of our four best wines of this vintage come from the island it damaged – and counting the Sera, three of the best six, all based on late-picked, thick-skinned varieties.

The second-highest wine, by contrast, confirms the number rather than contradicting it. The Apeiro of Philos Wines, a single-varietal Agiorgitiko from old vines, comes from Dafni, one of the seventeen communities of the Nemea zone – the area with the highest red value of this vintage. Ten years after the harvest, the nose was the most complex bouquet we encountered in a Greek red that year: black cherry liqueur, violets, graphite, sea breeze. On the palate, the parts do not quite lock together yet, the mid-palate seems a touch loose; the salt-rimmed fruit and a minutes-long finish are enough for 95 points nonetheless.

The second Nemea wine shows how finely resolved the 7.5 is. For the Apocalypsis of Barafakas Winery, the best parcels on the slopes of Agios Ilias were selected after years of observation, at 380 to 400 meters – a stretch below the band to which the high value applies. Nine years after the harvest, the wine was multi-layered and explosive on the attack, but then shifted into dark, olivey, earthy notes and seeped away into them rather quickly. 89 points, and whoever has it in the cellar should drink it.

The weakest wine in our holdings is the wine on which the vintage broke apart. Tsantali Reserve from the PDO Naoussa, a Xinomavro with three years in small barrique, offered butter and mocha on the nose nine years after the harvest and then disappointed with a thin palate and a fleeting finish – 85 points. In the same Xinomavro tasting stood the 1992 of the same wine, thirty-two years old, with a malty nose, a surprisingly fresh palate and perfectly preserved tannins: 92 points. One bottle does not prove a vintage. But thin and fleeting is exactly what a diluted Xinomavro leaves behind.

Our second Xinomavro sits six points above it and comes not from the north but from the PGI Opountias Lokridas in Central Greece: after nine years, the Karadimos already showed browning rims, along with tomato and dried raisins, powerful tannins and a herbal-spicy intensity – a wine for everyone who appreciates the rustic side of the variety, 91 points. For red, both landscapes carry the same value in this vintage.

Two wines stand next to another vintage from the same glass. We had the red Amethystos of Domaine Costa Lazaridi, the country's most popular Bordeaux blend, as a 2015 and a 2018 side by side: the older with clear, vibrant fruit, soft tannins and vanilla stepped into the background at 91 points, the younger with dominant vanilla and front-loaded tannin at 89. For Drama, 2015 stands half a point above 2018, and the two glasses ran in the same direction. With the Opus IB of Domaine Hatzimichalis, a single-varietal Cabernet Franc from the Atalanti valley, this cannot be held against the vintage: for Lokris there is no figure for 2004, because the landscape's harvest data do not reach back that far. The 2004, after nineteen years, showed leather, licorice, flint and graphite exactly at its peak and received 95 points, the 2015, after eight years, bright cherry fruit and Burgundian lightness, 92 – still somewhat rustic and closed, with room to grow. Between the two glasses lie eleven years of bottle age.

From Pangeon comes, with 93 points, the red Biblinos of Ktima Biblia Chora, pressed from a single vine found on the mountain, which no known variety explains and which DNA analysis identifies as an old Greek vine. Six years after the harvest, sandalwood and eucalyptus dominated over a still-crisp acidity; the primary fruit had already faded, the tertiary aromas were not yet there. And from the west coast of the peninsula, from the PGI Trifilia, stands the Agiorgitiko Cube of Panagiotopoulos Wines with 90 points – in its seventh year without any sign of weakness, spicy with notes of curry plant, with only thirteen percent alcohol and an ex-cellar price of 6.80 euros.

Top 3 of our own tastings

Rank 1 – 96 points Domaine Economou Mirabello

Rank 2 – 95+ points Philos Wines Apeiro "∞"

Rank 3 – 94+ points Silva Daskalaki Winery Enstikto red

All tasting notes from 2015

· Barafakas Winery Apocalypsis · 89

· Domaine Costa Lazaridi Amethystos red · 91

· Domaine Economou Mirabello · 96

· Domaine Hatzimichalis Opus IB · 92

· Karadimos Xinomavro · 91

· Ktima Biblia Chora Biblinos red · 93

· Panagiotopoulos Wines Agiorgitiko Cube · 90

· Philos Wines Apeiro · 95

· Silva Daskalaki Winery Enstikto red · 94

· Silva Daskalaki Winery Sera · 92

· Tsantali Reserve Naoussa · 85

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