Ktima Gerovassiliou – Malagousia 2025

The Malagouzia is the wine on which Evangelos Gerovassiliou built his reputation, the variety he played a decisive role in rescuing as an oenologist at Porto Carras, now vinified from his own estate near Papamola, some 25 kilometres southeast of Thessaloniki. "Single Vineyard" here does not mean a tiny cru but the contiguous estate vineyard of more than 110 hectares, a maritime flatland site on the Thermaic Gulf on sandy soils with clay subsoils, calcareous rock and marine fossils, surrounded on three sides by the sea just four kilometres away. After cold skin contact, the wine ferments largely in stainless steel at 18 degrees, with a smaller portion, a fifth to a quarter, Julia Harding MW puts it at 25 percent, in used, neutral French 225-litre barriques, after which it rests several months on the fine lees. At around 210,000 bottles, this is a signature wine produced in large quantity. And at 14 percent, the 2025 is the first in my run of this wine to go beyond the 13.5 percent that all its predecessors carried.

The estate's harvest report describes 2025 in Epanomi as a healthy year, with a cold winter and enough rain, a cool June that kept disease pressure at bay, and a harvest that began on 12 August and ran for around 50 days, one of the longest in recent years. For the white wines it reports about ten percent more volume than the previous year and describes them as aromatically intense, pure-fruited and acid-balanced, though this is the estate's own report, not an independent second voice. For me, 2025 is in any case one of the best white wine vintages we have had in Greece in recent years, especially for Malagouzia in northern Greece, and this one is among the most complete vintages of this wine I have come across.

On the nose it is nonetheless a touch reserved. It does not yet reach the 2020, which I saw at 95 points in 2021 with a year of bottle age and which, on uncorking, threw a wave of peach across the room, for me the legendary vintage of this wine. The peach fruit here is not pushed to the extreme. On the palate, though, it convinces, refreshing, with lovely texture and good grip, plus mint, basil and citrus fruits.

It shares precisely this palate strength with the 2023, which I last had in the glass, ranked rather cautiously at 91 points at the first tasting in 2024, then corrected to 92 at the retasting in August 2026 for its texture, its really good acidity and its backbone. The 2025 brings freshness and the markedly stronger vintage to this structure.

If the nose now matched those old flights of brilliance, I would give a vintage and a wine like this even more. It has the story, and the ability to be quite outstanding in individual aspects too. At Decanter, Sylvia Wu reached 94 points, while the Decanter World Wine Awards competition gave the 2025 silver. Anyone buying it online should look closely. Several merchants attach the 97 points and the "Best in Show" title from the DWWA to the 2025's page, even though that award belongs to the 2024. In Greece it costs around 17.70 euros, practically the same as the 2023. For me this is 94 points. I am still waiting for the perfect vintage.