Oinotropai Winery — Roditis 2019

As part of a tasting of Roditis wines designed to explore the potential of this often underestimated red-skinned grape variety — somewhere between bulk production and quality winemaking — the Roditis 2019 from Ktima Oinotropai proved to be outstanding. Roditis often brings to mind windfall fruit, overripe or even rotting apples — and at the same time tends to come across as somewhat flat and watery. Baked apple certainly makes an appearance in this wine from the heart of the Peloponnese — but the malolactic fermentation rounds the wine out so beautifully that you can't help but imagine the matching vanilla sauce to go with it. The ideal wine for sunny autumn days, a memory of summer amid the colourful foliage. An elegant wine, but not a vain one — it makes things easy for you, caresses you. And yet it still holds secrets for the patient taster — such as a fascinating minerality that only reveals itself over time. Yannis Athanasakopoulos described this wine as 'one of the most delicate wines you can taste from the Roditis variety' and awarded 89 points, which seems rather stingy. Even as a Roditis sceptic, one has to admit: this is a magnificent wine that deserves 93 points. A wine that lends entirely new lustre to the PGI Messinien appellation — and all for just €7 in Greece. Almost unbelievable.