Vintage 2020

late · healthy · the return to normality

Nationwide 8.0 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: high

Macedonia

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

Amyndeon · PDO – Red 8.0 (Confidence: high)

Goumenissa · PDO – Red 8.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Thrace

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

Epirus

Metsovo · PGI – Red 7.5 · White 7.5 (Confidence: medium)

Thessaly

Rapsani · PDO – Red 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Karditsa · PGI – Red 8.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: low)

Central Greece

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

Attika · PGI – Red 7.5 · White 7.5 (Confidence: medium)

Peloponnese

Nemea · PDO – Red 9.0 (Confidence: high)

Mantinia · PDO – White 8.0 (Confidence: high)

Cyclades

Santorini · PDO – White 8.5 (Confidence: high)

Crete 7.5 · Pangeon 8.5 · Drama 8.5 · Epanomi 8.0 (given there as an overall value) · Peloponnese outside Nemea and Mantinia 7.5

The Rapsani value applies to the PDO Rapsani on the eastern slope of Mount Olympus, not to the other appellations of Thessaly. The Attika value applies to the plain around Athens, not to Lokris in Phthiotis; that carries its own.

A vintage that stands out above all because nothing extraordinary happened. The harvest began, depending on the variety, seven to ten days later than had recently become the norm, and that was precisely the remarkable thing: after a series of years in which heat pulled ripening forward, the ripening window was back where it used to be. The whites came in with balanced acidity, the late reds with fully ripened tannins. Quantities were ten to fifteen percent below the previous year.

The vintage still has its catastrophe. It just did not strike the vineyards one would have been watching.

Nemea – 9.0

The highest regional value we award for 2020, and the only red nine in our entire series that stands outside Macedonia. The winter was cold and persistently wet, in Mantinia the frost held on into March, and the vines started correspondingly late. What followed in summer was heat, but moderate heat: in Mantinia, average August temperatures never exceeded 24 degrees. Then came a cool, sunny September with no rain worth mentioning.

For Agiorgitiko, that is the rare combination. In hot years the variety tends to trade fruit for alcohol; here it stayed fresh, with lower yields and impeccable grape health.

The Medicane "Ianos", 17 to 19 September

A Mediterranean cyclone with tropical-like characteristics moved across the west and centre of the country. On Kefalonia, around 760 millimetres fell within 48 hours, on Zakynthos about 250. In Thessaly, around 475 square kilometres of the plain were under water. Four people died, and the damage amounted to roughly 700 million euros.

For viticulture, what mattered was where the storm went and where it did not. Hit were the Ionian Islands and western Thessaly; spared were the southern Aegean, Crete and the northeast. And within Thessaly, the dividing line ran between plain and slope: what flooded the plain of Karditsa was a different story for the hillside sites on Mount Olympus. From one of them, the PGI Krania, comes the highest-rated Thessalian wine we know from this vintage.

Karditsa – 8.0

In the Thessalian plain, little spring rain fell, the summer remained mild and without long temperature swings, and it turned warm at harvest. Yields were fifteen to twenty percent above the previous year, sugar levels above that.

Rapsani – Red 8.0

On the eastern slope of Mount Olympus, the harvest began five days after the storm, on 24 September, and it ran in stages across the appellation's three altitude zones, from the coastal plain to above five hundred metres. What came in was the cleanest harvest material in years: good ripeness, high gradation, normal depth of colour. The value matches the nationwide one.

It applies to the PDO Rapsani, not to Tyrnavos, Meteora, Karditsa or Magnesia. Krania, too, lies on the same massif, but at around seven hundred metres it is higher and cooler than the Rapsani zones; there is no separate figure for its wines.

Macedonia – Naoussa 8.0 · Amyndeon 8.0 · Goumenissa 8.0

A cooler March drew out budbreak and made it uneven. April and May arrived warm and dry, with a marked gap between day and night. The summer was xerothermic, with several long heatwaves and the possibility of drought stress, but without any fungal pressure worth mentioning. Autumn once again brought the wide day–night span that completes ripening; rain did not fall until October and did no more harm.

In Amyndeon, the year can be read in three figures: 158.8 millimetres of rainfall from April to September, just under 14 degrees of alcohol and 32 hectolitres per hectare. The high-altitude zone that usually worries about full ripening had no trouble with it in 2020.

On the southeastern slopes of Paiko, Goumenissa followed the same course. The winter stayed dry and mild, April and May brought abundant rain, and budbreak came ten days later than the previous year. The summer ran mild and allowed two short heatwaves without the grapes taking damage; the weather remained excellent throughout the entire harvest, with a small rain delaying it by three days. Quantities were five to ten percent above 2019 – in a year that elsewhere lost ten to fifteen percent.

Epanomi – 8.0

On the peninsula southeast of Thessaloniki, no snow fell in winter, and budbreak here too came around ten days later. Heavy April rains stretched flowering out until mid-May and supplied the vines for the rest of the year. July stayed at 28 to 30 degrees by day and 18 to 19 at night – the span on which the aromatic whites of this coast depend. The harvest went smoothly, and the Xinomavro came in under ideal conditions.

Lokris

On the North Euboean Gulf, 130 kilometres northwest of Athens, winter and spring brought sufficient rain at mild temperatures. Sporadic June rains and a July without great heat pushed ripening back. During the harvest period itself, in August and September, normal temperatures prevailed in relative dryness, and with the alternating air currents from Parnassus and the Gulf, this produced very good sugar and acidity levels. Picking began in the first days of August with the white varieties and finished in the last third of September; the health of the grapes was very good.

The crop was lost elsewhere: the region's wild boar population once again cost a considerable share, above all among the red varieties. In the higher sites, 300 to 600 kilograms per stremma came in; on the plain, 600 to 900.

Maroneia – Red 7.5 · White 7.5

In the Thracian coastal plain south of the Rhodopes, the harvest took place at the normal dates, without any particular plant-protection effort and with roughly the same yields as the previous year. Two things defined the year: there were no heatwaves, and it was dry.

Santorini – White 8.5

The recovery year after the collapse of 2019. Winter brought rain showers, spring stayed mild, and the winds held back; only on 16 April did strong north winds brush parts of the northern vineyards. The summer ran typically insular, without extreme heat, with cool nights. Picking began slightly delayed, from 4 August.

The decisive figure is the one beneath: the island once again brought in around 2,500 tonnes. A year earlier it had been 1,100.

Attika – 7.5

A good winter, a mild spring without frost, then a moderate summer with strikingly cool nights. Drought pushed yields down, the harvest ran normally, and September gave the late reds the phenolic ripeness they needed.

Our wines

We tasted 96 Greek wines from 2020, from 45 producers. After 2021, this is the best-documented vintage in our database. The median is 91 points.

The two highest ratings went to the Kokotos Estate from Attika and to the Stella from Ktima Katsarou in Thessalian Krania. Neither, then, comes from Nemea, the area we rate highest in this vintage. Close behind, each with 95: the Palies Rizes from La Tour Melas, the Malagousia from Ktima Gerovassiliou in Epanomi, and two further wines from La Tour Melas, the La Tour Melas itself from Fthiotida and the Cyrus One, a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Agiorgitiko spanning two parts of the country.

From the Kokotos Estate, the 2017 was also in the glass, at almost the same age, and at 98 points it ranked even higher – although 2017 is nationally considered the weaker year. On an individual estate, the harvest decides, not the national average.

From Lokris, six wines from four producers are in the database, led by the La Tour Melas at 95 and the Alepotrypa from Domaine Hatzimichalis at 94 points. From this estate, the vintage can be held up against two older ones, and cleanly: we tasted the Merlot Alargino from 2004, 2011 and 2020 on the same day, at 95, 94 and 93 points. The series declines toward the youngest vintage. What separates the three glasses is sixteen years of bottle age, not the weather.

Epanomi, for us, is a single estate: all four wines of the vintage come from Ktima Gerovassiliou, between 92 and 95 points. From Thrace came two bottles from Passas Winery at 89 and 85; their sites lie in the same coastal plain as Maroneia but carry no appellation that exactly matches the regional value.

Top 3 of our own tastings

Rank 1 – 96 points Kokotos Estate Kokotos Estate · Ktima Katsarou Stella

Rank 3 – 95+ points La Tour Melas Palies Rizes