Monsieur Nicolas – Moi Je M'en Fous! Aged 2023

"Moi, je m'en fous!" translates as "I couldn't care less!", and it is under this name that Giorgos Karamitros bottles the aged red wine line at his Monsieur Nicolas estate in Messenikolas, in Thessalian Karditsa. The estate lies on the Agrafa mountains near Lake Plastiras, the vines stand at just under 700 metres, and for the Aged line the estate cites vines around 50 years old. The wine here is a single-varietal Limniona of the 2023 vintage, matured for twelve months in oak barrels, with 13 percent alcohol. It is classified as PGI Karditsa, and that is not a downgrade. The PDO Messenikola requires Mavro Messenikola blended with Carignan and Syrah, so a single-varietal Limniona cannot appear there at all. Limniona is the red Thessalian variety that should not be confused with the Limnio of Lemnos and Chalkidiki, even though the names are similar.

I tasted it in September 2026 together with its sister wine, the Moi Je M'en Fous! Aged Limnionas Amphora 2024, which earned 90 points from me – a fresh, light wine with 12.5 percent and an astonishingly long finish.

As a vintage, 2023 was a polarised, extreme year in Greece. There is no dedicated regional vintage score for Karditsa 2023, so the national figure applies, and at 6.0 out of 10 it sits slightly below the Greek median of 6.5.

On the nose the oak is clearly noticeable, and on the palate too it is very much to the fore, very influential. Compared with the amphora-aged wine, this is the distinctly more serious of the two, with a little more complexity but markedly less drive. This too is, to my mind, a genuinely successful Limniona, though handling oak correctly with this variety is, in my view, a very difficult undertaking.

At three years of age the 2023 shows no sign of weakness yet. I believe, however, that Limniona simply is not made for the long haul, for extended cellaring. In Greece the wine costs around 29 euros. For me this is 89 points.