Images care of oenorama.com and semili-wines.gr
When Jubbs and I were looking for wine for the wedding we thought that there was no chance we were going to get a great Greek wine. My family and I had obviously tasted some very special ones over the years, a lot of them not to our taste. By chance Jubbs and I were in Athens at the same time as the Oenorama wine trade expo was on. So away we went with my Aunt. Poor Jubbs came off the starting blocks a little fast not realising that Greece has a large amount of vineyards and was two sheets to the wind by the end of the first room. Only 3 more to go! The variety was huge ranging from more conventional wines to the more Greek style wines. I was amazed to find such a vast amount of choice and it was from here we decided getting the red from Greece was a must.
Back to the red: Finding a Greek who has good knowledge of their wines is the key. Get their advice and then try, try, try. If that is not possible, there are websites out there, which specialise in Greek wines, read up! If you can, try and make it out to Athens for Oenorama (www.oenorama.com). It is a great opportunity to have all the wines in one area and maybe be able to haggle the price of a large order directly with the vineyard. I must confess we dealt directly with the vineyard with a little help from my Aunt. Although we had a contact I do believe it is worth a contacting the vineyards even if you don’t.
We sat down for a nice dinner with my father and around 20 bottles of recommended wine. We all tasted and rated the wines and then the overall favourite was the one we went with. After 2 hours we had a winner Semeli (www.semeli-wines.gr). I must admit it was delicious and we ended up bringing back an extra 4 cases to enjoy at home.
The white we actually brought from the UK. My mother likes only certain types of white wine, not helped by her allergies to some, so we thought it was best to bring over a wine we new was good and was one of her favourites. I know that there are some great white wines too, we just never got round to look for them for obvious reasons!
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