Better than Bordeaux?

That the Ktima Kokotos 2017 from Kokotos Estate (PGI Attica) can't be a bad wine has been clear at the latest since it placed 15th in the "50 Great Greek Wines" competition, making it the best international cuvée among the wines tasted. But even before that, Greece lovers should already have had this wine on their radar. It comes, after all, from an estate with decades of tradition. Anne and Jorgos Kokotos founded the estate near Stamata, not far from Athens, as a refuge, and have been bottling it since 1985. Konstantinos Lazarakis MW considers it, alongside the Cabernet Sauvignon from Katogi Averoff (in German), to have been "the coolest, firmest, most old-world Cabernet Sauvignon in Greece, needing years to soften" (The Wines of Greece, p. 191). After a phase of growth, the founding of an estate in Nemea, and handing over the name "Semeli" to that estate, the Kokotos couple are now once again fully occupied with their vineyard near Stamata; since 2011, "Kokotos Estate" has been bottled under this name.

We now wanted to know how good this wine actually is.

For that, of course, we first needed a worthy international comparison wine. It was quickly clear that this meant getting hold of Château Ducru-Beaucaillou.

Because this second growth from Saint Julien likewise shows 90% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot in this vintage. Ideal for a blind tasting, then, if hard on the wallet. Future comparisons with international wines should incidentally get easier, since Ktima Kokotos has been ramping up its Merlot share since 2019. This has to do with the couple noticing, after 15 years, a marked rise in quality from the Merlot vines planted directly after 2002.

Visually, the wines differ quite noticeably. The Ducru-Beaucaillou (bottom right in the photo) leans considerably more toward the violet spectrum, but also already has more sediment, so you shouldn't read too much into relative ageing potential from colour alone.

In terms of ageing, the two wines are similar, if of course not identical. Ducru-Beaucaillou spends 18 months in French oak, Kokotos even 26. As for alcohol, the two are again fairly close: Ducru-Beaucaillou comes in at 13.5%, Kokotos at 14%. Despite these points of contact, it's still shocking how close the wines sit on the nose. Especially once the wines warm up a touch, you'd barely be able to tell them apart without a parallel glass. Ducru leans a shade more toward red fruit, Kokotos has more smoky aromas. On the palate, too, there's barely a hair's breadth between the two cuvées. Ducru-Beaucaillou is a touch more filigree, Kokotos more complex for it. In the finish, too, they hold up comparably long. Two wines that could hardly be better for their type – only able to get (even) better still with time.

The fact that the Kokotos keeps pace so effortlessly with one of the best Bordeaux wines of the vintage (we hardly dare say it: in the blind tasting it was even slightly ahead) can hardly be emphasised enough. It makes me think that Marcus Hofschuster, writing for "wein.plus", recently found, among 150 Greek wines, only four that scraped their way to and past his 90-point mark. For comparison: the Ducru-Beaucaillou 2017 currently holds an average rating of 96.37 points on "Global Wine Score" – putting it 11th among Bordeaux's dry reds, on the Left Bank, directly after Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, Léoville Las Cases, Mouton Rothschild, and still ahead of Lafite, Palmer, and the like. Granted, at €50, the Kokotos is also one of the very priciest Greek reds – yet it still costs only a third of the Ducru-Beaucaillou, and is likely barely known to any Bordeaux lover. The perfect wine, then, to make a Bordeaux fan reconsider their prejudices about Greece (or to lead just such a Bordeaux fan out onto thin ice…). Also rather lovely, by the way: in the estate's shop, the prices for the individual vintages reflect the producers' own assessment of quality…

Oh, and one thing we mustn't forget amid all this enthusing, of course: how good, then, really is the Kokotos Estate 2017? It is, without a shadow of a doubt, a phenomenal wine, deserving at least 19 points, and with more maturity it may well still have room to climb higher.