Vintage 2025

dry · healthy · the smallest harvest we know of

Nationwide 7.5 out of 10 · Confidence of rating: medium

Macedonia

Naoussa · PDO – Red 9.0 · White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Goumenissa · PDO – Red 8.0 · White 7.5 (Confidence: medium)

Amyndeon · PDO – Red 8.0 · White 7.0 (Confidence: medium)

Epirus

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

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

Thessaly

Meteora · PGI – Red 7.5 · White 7.5 (Confidence: low)

Central Greece

Atalanti and Opountia Lokridas · PGI – Red 7.5 · White 7.5 (Confidence: medium)

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

Peloponnese

Mantinia · PDO – White 8.0 (Confidence: medium)

Nemea · PDO – Red 7.0 (Confidence: medium)

Cyclades

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

Crete 7.5 · Drama 8.0 · Pangeon 8.0 · Epanomi 8.0 · the Peloponnese outside of Nemea and Mantinia 7.5 (each as an overall score without separation by colour)

Jancis Robinson summed up this vintage in five words: outstanding quality, a crisis of quantity. The two belong together, and you cannot offset one against the other.

The winter of 2024/25 was mild and, above all, too dry — the third hot, dry year in a row. On Santorini, rainfall between September and August added up to 165 millimetres, about half the twenty-year average, and the usable part of it fell as early as December. The mild February, with lows around 6 to 8 degrees, made the vines bud unevenly.

What saved the vintage came at the end: a cool ripening corridor without a heatwave and an autumn without ill-timed rain. The factor with the greatest destructive potential, wetness during the harvest window, was absent across practically the whole country. The grapes came in healthy.

Naoussa – Red 9.0 · White 8.0

The highest score we award for 2025. Across twenty-six vintages there are seven nines, and three of them belong to Naoussa – 2011, 2019 and this year.

Spring here ran counter to the rest of the country: April and May were cold and wet, with 169 millimetres against an average of 123. The shoots developed late and unevenly, and anyone who wanted a clean picture in autumn had to select.

Then the year turned. Cool nights and a rain-free late-harvest window are exactly what Xinomavro needs: the variety ripens late, it rots easily, and in 2025 it was spared both. What came of it has solid phenolic ripeness, good acidity and deep colour, and it sits clearly above 2024. Striking is the direction the style has taken — controlled tannins, restrained oak, precision instead of power.

Santorini – White 8.0

On the island it was not the heat that decided things, but the wind. During budbreak and flowering, strong southwesterly winds swept over the vineyards and damaged shoots and leaves, most severely in the south. Over the ripening period the anedosa then returned, the sea mist that gives the vines moisture without any rain falling.

The Assyrtiko that resulted has exemplary acidity, a markedly mineral profile and, at around 13.5 degrees, even slightly less alcohol than usual. The figures in the cellar were 6 to 6.5 grams of tartaric acid and a pH around 3.1, in some cases below that. A comparison can be made with the electric 2015.

And then the other side. The island brought in around 450 tonnes, in places less than 500 kilos per hectare — the historic low. The grape price rose from 85 cents to 10 to 15 euros per kilo, with the vineyard area halved. That is a structural crisis, and it is not reflected in the rating, because what is rated is what is in the glass.

The Peloponnese – Mantinia 8.0 · Nemea 7.0

Here the year began with damage. At the end of March, frost and hail hit several Nemea zones, and on the Mantinia plateau the thermometer dropped to minus 5 degrees. Budbreak became uneven, and the cool, rainy April and May built up fungal pressure, which could be kept under control.

For Moschofilero this turned into the opposite. The aromatic variety lives off the gap between day and night, and the high altitude delivered it: small berries, thoroughly healthy fruit at harvest, plenty of aroma, practically no disease pressure. In Nemea, Agiorgitiko ripened evenly despite the spring, with good colour and balanced acidity — saved by the absence of late heat and by the north winds.

Crete – 7.5

Snow in winter filled the reserves, zeolite was used against the early drought stress, and the harvest stretched from 4 August for Liatiko to 30 September for Mandilari. The whites from Vidiano, Vilana and Thrapsathiri came in with high acidity, full body and rich aromatics. The reds show a lively ruby and soft tannins.

Our wines

So far we have tasted 18 Greek wines from 2025, from 11 producers. The median is 91 points.

They show the vintage from one side. Sixteen of the eighteen are white or rosé — what carries this vintage upward, the Xinomavro from Naoussa, is still in the cellar. At the top stands a rosé: the Silphium from La Tour Melas in Achinos in Fthiotida. Behind it the Malagousia from Ktima Gerovassiliou in Epanomi, then three wines tied – the second rosé from La Tour Melas, Idylle d'Achinos, the rosé from Lacules Estate and the white Biblia Chora from Pangeon.

Top 3 of our own tastings

Rank 1 – 95 points La Tour Melas Silphium

Rank 2 – 94 points Ktima Gerovassiliou Malagousia

Rank 3 – 93 points Ktima Biblia Chora Biblia Chora white · La Tour Melas Idylle d'Achinos · Lacules Estate Rosé