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Giannikos Winery

  • Writer: Griechische Weine
    Griechische Weine
  • Apr 29, 2021
  • 2 min read

We've been following the "Giannikos Winery" with interest for a few years now, ever since we came across their attractively designed bottles in a small organic shop in Zurich. We're pleased to see it improving continuously and positioning itself ever more strongly on the international market. Our website is naturally also meant to discuss and place the well-known wines of the "big names" (see for instance here), but it's just as much our interest to introduce smaller winemakers, so they get the attention from wine lovers that they deserve. With three permanent employees at the winery, "Giannikos Winery" is indeed a family business. In total, 8ha are farmed – with a yield of 40-50 hl/ha – spread across two sites.

In 1896, the year the Olympic flame burned again in Greece for the first time since antiquity, the Giannikos family planted their first vines in the immediate vicinity of ancient Mycenae. A region with a very rich tradition in winegrowing and wine trade: wine is already mentioned in the oldest surviving records of the Greek language from the Mycenaean cultural sphere. (Finds like the golden cup pictured, dating from the middle of the second millennium BC, testify to this wine culture.) Roditis, Viognier, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon still come from the plots near Mycenae to this day.


100 years after the founding, though, a very different kind of fire struck – a devastating blaze destroyed the winery. Michalis Giannikos then began building a new winery north of Acrocorinth, a few hundred metres from the Gulf of Corinth.

Here, Malagousia and Merlot are grown. On top of that come Agiorgitiko grapes from Archaia Nemea, sourced from a long-standing contract partner. All the wines are organically certified and aged as single-variety wines. (In a few years, further wines from autochthonous varieties are due to come to market.)


They're offered, incidentally, consistently under the PGI Peloponnese designation of origin. For the "Nemea" designation, the Agiorgitiko is missing the winery's location within PDO Nemea. For the wines from Corinth, one could of course also opt here for the more narrowly defined PGI Corinth designation, which is, however – especially compared to PDO Nemea, which lies within it – less well known. Here we run into a not-uncommon circumstance with Greek wines: that despite the system's French model, the larger appellation often enjoys the better reputation.


We've already published tasting notes on the Roditis, Malagousia and Agiorgitiko (in German). Generally, the wines from Giannikos Winery stand out for how much terroir shines through. They're not eager to please and can even rub you the wrong way with their specific characteristics at times. But that's precisely what makes them interesting, too.


At the winery, which you're welcome to visit, German is spoken alongside Greek and English. Emails (info@giannikoswinery.com) can be sent in these languages too.


In Germany, the wine is available from the webshop of Jordan Olivenöl. Some of the wines are also available from "Vunatis". Anyone who uses the (affiliate) link in the banner below for a voucher thereby supports this website:

You can follow the winery on the following social media platforms:


Tasting notes:



 
 
 

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