Vintage 2019

moderate · acid-fresh · very unevenly distributed

Nationwide 8.0 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: high

Macedonia

Naoussa · PDO – Red 9.0 · White 8.5 (Confidence: high)

Amyndeon · PDO – Red 8.5 (Confidence: high)

Thrace

Maroneia · PDO – Red 7.5 · White 7.0 (Confidence: low)

Epirus

Metsovo · PGI – Red 8.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Thessaly

Rapsani · PDO – Red 8.5 (Confidence: medium)

Meteora · PGI – Red 8.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Central Greece

Attika and Central Greece · PGI – Red 8.5 · White 8.5 (Confidence: high)

Atalanti and Opountia Lokridas · PGI – Red 8.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: low)

Peloponnese

Mantinia · PDO – White 8.0 (Confidence: high)

Nemea · PDO – Red 7.0 (Confidence: high)

Cyclades

Santorini · PDO – Red 7.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: high)

Crete 8.0 · Epanomi 8.5 · Pangeon 8.0 · Drama 7.5 · Peloponnese outside Nemea and Mantinia 7.5 (each as an overall value without separation by color)

Not a heat year, and therein lies its value. The summer remained moderate and thunderstorm-active, without the long drought periods in which Greek vintages otherwise lose their acidity. The grapes ripened fully and still kept their freshness – the combination that warm years rarely manage. 2019 thereby became one of the three strongest vintages in our series, together with 2020 and 2022. Even on Crete, where acidity is usually the scarce commodity, the whites from Vidiano, Vilana and Thrapsathiri got enough of it for freshness and longevity.

It turned out best in the north. On Santorini, at the same time, the smallest harvest since 1991 came in.

Northern Greece – Naoussa 9.0 · Amyndeon 8.5

Here, 2019 was what a winemaker wishes for. The winter had filled the water reserves, fruit set succeeded without frost and without rain at flowering, and the summer remained evenly warm. The autumn was decisive: long, mild, without the rain event that otherwise forces a rushed harvest. Anyone who wanted to wait for the perfect moment could wait.

For Xinomavro, that is the ideal constellation. The variety ripens late and needs exactly these unhurried weeks to ripen its tannins without the acidity collapsing. What came of it has deep color, powerful but ripe structure, and yet only 12 to 12.5 degrees of alcohol. Kir-Yianni simply calls it the best vintage in twenty years – for Naoussa as well as for Amyndeon.

Amyndeon lies at 600 to 700 meters altitude, and there, in cool years, the question is whether Xinomavro will finish ripening at all. In 2019, the long mild autumn never posed it.

Epanomi – 8.5

On the coast south of Thessaloniki, where Malagousia and Assyrtiko stand on sandy soils close to the sea, 2019 was perhaps the best year of the last twenty years – so it is said from the region itself. Only a handful of origins carry this vintage's superlative, and Epanomi is one of them.

Attika, Central Greece and Thessaly – 8.5

The middle of the country was barely behind the north. The winter was cold and sufficiently wet, in the highlands around Metsovo a lot of snow fell, and the vines started correspondingly late. From April to June came heavy, evenly distributed rain that filled the groundwater reserves; in Attika, flowering was delayed by almost two weeks. After that it turned dry, without ever becoming extremely hot.

The harvest took place 7 to 15 days later than usual, rain-free and thoroughly healthy. After the preceding heat years, this was simply the return to a normal ripening window. Attika was afterwards considered the best year in five years, Evia a great year for all varieties. In Thessaly, the Rapsani came in on September 19, around ten days later than usual, with dense fruit and high alcohol potential; from the Meteora came reds with plenty of color and rounded tannins, and around Karditsa the yield was 15 percent higher than normal, at better quality.

The clearest beneficiaries were Attika's old Savatiano vines: a summer without extreme heat gives this variety back the acidity it loses first in hot years.

Peloponnese – Mantinia 8.0 · Nemea 7.0

A completely different course, and it ended differently for white and red. The winter was cold and decidedly wet – in Mantinia, 268 millimeters fell in January alone – and the frost lasted into March. The vines started late and remained behind for a long time. Only the summer turned to heat and drought and kept it up into September.

What at first looked like a difficult year thereby became a very clean one: no disease pressure, thoroughly healthy harvest fruit, in Nemea normal yields of around 800 kilos per stremma. The delayed course benefited above all the late-ripening Moschofilero. In Mantinia, its harvest began on October 1; three days later rain fell and interrupted it, but by then the essential part was already in the cellar.

Agiorgitiko came in healthy and acid-driven in Nemea, structured rather than opulent – a fresh red wine style and the counter-model to what heat years produce there.

Santorini – White 8.0

And then the island where none of this applied in 2019. The problem was not heat but wind: during flowering, gusts of over 11 Beaufort swept across the vineyards, far beyond what the Meltemi usually brings, and destroyed the fruit set. After several drought years, this hit vines that were already weakened.

The numbers of this vintage are hard to believe. Instead of the usual roughly 3,000 tonnes, the island brought in about 1,100 – equivalent to 4.5 hectoliters per hectare instead of 17. It was Santorini's smallest Assyrtiko harvest since 1991. Grape prices, already at the top of the European scale, spun out of control.

What remained was excellent – concentrated, high in acidity, the way only a few grapes on an old vine can become. There was just almost none of it. Anyone who has a Santorini 2019 in the cellar owns a vintage that never existed in normal quantity.

Our wines

We tasted 81 Greek wines from 2019, from 51 producers. The median stands at 90 points.

At the top is the Alpha One from Alpha Estate with 96 points. Behind it follow two wines with 95: the Areti white from Ktima Biblia Chora and the MagioVotano from Ampelourgein on Crete. Also at 95, from the PGI Ilia in the western Peloponnese, the Assyrtiko from Olympia Land Estate – the Trilogia from Ktima Dyio Ipsi from the same appellation is one point below, at 94.

Top 3 of our own tastings

Rank 1 – 96 points Alpha Estate Alpha One

Rank 2 – 95+ points Ampelourgein MagioVotano · Ktima Biblia Chora Areti white