Ktima Biblia Chora — Biblia Chora rot 2023

The Biblia Chora Rot is one of my favourite Greek estate wines. It bears the name of the estate with nothing added, and thus sits beneath the prestige cuvées like the Ovilos; for well under twenty euros it is the most affordable red of the house that Vangelis Gerovassiliou and Vassilis Tsaktsarlis built on the slopes of Pangeon near Kavala. Both trained in Bordeaux, Gerovassiliou under Émile Peynaud, and it was this same Gerovassiliou who once rescued the nearly vanished Malagousia at Porto Carras. The two laid out the cellar like a Bordeaux château and have worked organically from the start. To modern ears the name suggests books, but it goes back to the ancient Biblinos wine that made Pangeon famous already in antiquity.

In the glass this is a Bordeaux blend, in 2023 made from 40 percent Merlot, 40 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 20 percent Agiorgitiko for the Greek touch. This Agiorgitiko share varies from year to year; in my 2010 and 2019 it was lower, at 15 percent. The wine matures twelve months in French oak, and it is precisely from this wood regime that, in the good years, comes that smoky, ashy spice which for me is the signature of the house. Across the vintages it has been a reliable performer for me. I had the 2019 in my glass in 2021, two years after the vintage, and noted 92 points; the 2010 only in 2023, with thirteen years of bottle age, and it still stood at 91+. The estate itself celebrated the 2023 as an exceptional Pangeon year. The great northern Greek reference vintage of recent times, however, was 2019, the best harvest in twenty years in the Xinomavro zones, while 2023 came in a notch below there. For the Kavala Bordeaux that is only a rough indication, but it made me curious as to where this vintage would land.

I opened it in May, and it leaves me somewhat undecided. The nose is thoroughly elegant, cherry, a few floral notes. On the palate the picture tips a little. The attack is powerful, the 14 percent alcohol immediately noticeable and pushing the flavour broadly ahead of it, and for all its velvetiness the wine leans too one-sidedly on the oak, without the courage to convert it into precisely that smoky, ashy spice. Only in the finish does the Merlot emerge, with dark olive, plus plenty of raspberry, behind it a milk-chocolate depth and a still rather dominant tannin. Nose, attack, mid-palate and finish mesh a touch too little for me. The awards, too, fit the picture, less as contrast than as confirmation. At Decanter in 2023 it managed only bronze, alongside gold at the more broadly scattering Concours Vinalies Internationales and Challenge International du Vin. A very solid vintage of a wine I hold in high regard, but it does not reach the 2019, and the mature 2010 also had more cohesion.

For me these are 90 points.