Nico Lazaridi — To Mavro Provato 2023

To Mavro Provato, the black sheep, is the emphatically modern, approachable line from Nico Lazaridi, vinified at the Mackedon winery at the foot of Mount Pangeon near Kavala. The red blend combines 60 percent Syrah and 40 percent Merlot and comes under screw cap. The bottle costs just under €17, a price point at which I expect a little substance.

Poured, it sits in the glass as a perfectly clear, pale dribble of water, and the 12.5 percent on the label alone confirms the impression that something is amiss here. On the nose it's still quite all right, a touch of red fruit, a little pepper. On the palate, though, nothing comes. It tastes like a water-ice on a stick, of which in the end only the wooden stick remains to chew on. Pure wood, barely drinkable, and the next day not at all.

Only after I had written that down did I look into the reason. The 2023 vintage was difficult on the Pangeon, a mild, dry winter, then a cold, very wet spring lasting into July, with plenty of water for the vines but high disease pressure and a late, compressed ripening. That can certainly favor a leaner wine. But it isn't diluted by rain; the harvest in September was dry, and in 2023 the region produced perfectly aromatic, structured red wines, provided the work in the vineyard was sound. So the vintage alone is not to blame.

It's more a matter of the wine itself. The 12.5 percent alcohol is no slip-up of the difficult vintage but the deliberately light, early-drinking style of this line. And it is aged with oak chips, not in barrels, contrary to what some German merchants claim. Chips give up their wood quickly and with a certain bitterness, and where fruit and mid-palate are lacking, all that remains is the naked wood. At least here, it simply doesn't work.

I don't understand what need there is for a wine like this. From Syrah and Merlot one can make such magnificent wines in Greece, and then you're faced with this pale nothing. For just under €17 it is simply too expensive. For me this is 82 points. A real black sheep among the better-known Greek blends made from international grape varieties.