Oinotropai: Finally There in Person, After Four Years in the Glass

Messenia is close to my heart, and I am often in the area. One estate I have followed for years without ever having been there: Ktima Oinotropai in Zevgolatio, a few kilometres outside Kalamata. Vasilis and Maria Kapopoulos make around thirty thousand bottles a year there, on the Messenian plain, a place hardly anyone associates with great wine.

My engagement with the estate began in 2022, with the first bottle in the glass. The Roditis 2019 stood at 93 points - quite a statement for a variety usually dismissed in Greece as a workhorse grape. That same year, two vintages of Chardonnay from the same estate joined the Roditis: 2018 with 93 points, clear fruit, baked apple, a long coconut and caramel finish, and 2019 with 92, more expressive but a touch harsher. Then two vintages of Merlot rosé, 2020 and 2022, both at 90 points.

The wine that has occupied me ever since came into the glass in December 2022: a Carignan from old vines, vintage 2018. Carignan from Greece - it simply does not exist elsewhere, at least not as a red wine. At the time I put it directly alongside a Chilean cult Carignan and landed at 94 points. Later came the Tempranillo 2017 with 92 points and, at the end of 2025, the Carignan 2021 with another 94.

Nine wines, then, over four years, none below 90 points. In early June I was finally there myself.

The Visit

We talked for a long time, in the vineyard, glass in hand, and tasted two wines along the way - the current Chardonnay and the current Carignan. More on those shortly. But the most remarkable thing about the morning stood in the vineyard itself.

There, Carignan and Tempranillo grow directly side by side, both planted decades ago. Same plain, same soil, same sun, same care - and two completely different responses. You can see it in the growth, in the leaves, in the way the vines cope with drought. Standing between the rows, you can see how differently two varieties deal with one and the same site.

For Greece, this is doubly unusual. Both varieties are outsiders here: Carignan is known from the Languedoc and Catalonia, Tempranillo from Rioja. That they have stood side by side here for decades, old enough to tell you something about the place, is something you will not encounter anywhere else in the country.

To the usual question - organic or conventional - I received a better answer than the question deserves. For the Kapopoulos family, it is not about a label but about what works in this place. The grass between the rows is left standing because it holds moisture in the soil. There is no irrigation, no fertiliser either. The old Carignan grows on its own roots, ungrafted, around forty years old, and gets through a Peloponnesian summer that way. If you do not irrigate, you force the roots downwards.

A Word on the Names

Anyone looking for the older wines will pause: they used to be called Roes, all of them - the Chardonnay, the Merlot rosé, the Tempranillo, the Carignan. These days each wine gets its own name. The Roes Chardonnay became Nomade, the Merlot rosé became Ombre, the Carignan became Red Monk. The thinking behind it: each wine should stand on its own rather than disappear under an umbrella brand.

Nomade Chardonnay 2025

The first wine of the morning, only just released. The vines grow on clay soil, there is a pronounced diurnal range and the cooling Ionian breeze. Six months in barrel.

On the nose plenty of banana, alongside fresh exotic fruit. On the palate invigorating, with still a fair amount of dissolved carbon dioxide, very good acidity and excellent grip. A kiss of oak, but not a trace of heaviness. This is exactly the style I appreciate in Greek Chardonnays: the ones that do not forgo the wood and yet never become heavyweights. I would give it another six months for the youthful restlessness to settle. 92+ points, at around 15 euros.

Red Monk 2024

Then the Carignan. Its block measures four tenths of a hectare, no more than that. It carries 13.3 per cent alcohol - and that is the number I thought about longest that morning.

2024 was the hottest and driest year in the recent run on the Peloponnese. A heat dome in July brought temperatures above forty degrees on twelve days, and the harvest was earlier than ever to get ahead of the racing sugars. In many places this produced powerful, tannin-heavy wines that need cellar time. Deep-rooted old vines had the advantage - and that is exactly what this block is.

The previous wine, the 2018, stood at 15.5 per cent. The 2021 at 14. Now 13.3, in the hottest year of them all.

In the glass, a bouquet you initially just want to keep smelling, a whole basket of fruit with herbal notes underneath. On the palate fascinating acidity and solid tannin, which may soften a little further and will then leave more room for the aromas on the finish. What is missing is also pleasing: the chocolatey note that heavier Greek reds of this style often bring with them. 93+ points, around 16 euros. It is drinkable now; it should be in full bloom from 2029.

What Remains

Nine wines over four years, none below 90 points: that is persistent, unhurried work on quality, vintage after vintage. The real achievement, though, lies in the vineyard. There stand Carignan and Tempranillo, planted decades ago, two foreign varieties side by side, from which you can read how differently they deal with one and the same site. That these old vines now go into the bottle at this level of quality is what remains of that morning. That the estate renames its wines and does not cling to fixed alcohol numbers is an expression of the same attitude: work here continues steadily and calmly, and what needs changing gets changed.

That I have now seen all this, rather than only tasted it, took four years. It was worth it.