Sent today from Boutari winery manager Petros Vamvakousis…
Santorini Pyrgos, 29/02/2012
It never snows in Santorini, but some times it really happens.
Dawning and the sunlight found the vineyard astonished in a white slipcover.
What an amazing contrast, white of the snow, grey-brown of the vine, black of the volcanic cinder.
It likes that someone leaves empty baskets inside snow, but really, are alive grapevines.
We snapped this photo of the subsoils of Santorini at the Boutari tasting room on the island.
The ancient volcanic subsoils — poor in nutrients and rich in minerality — are what gives the vines of Santorini their vigor and their rich mineral flavors.
The grains of volcanic “sand” are so tiny that phylloxera cannot exist there. All of the vines grown on Santorini are grown on pre-phylloxera rootstock.
Location: Santorini Megalochori
Date: 2/16/2012, early morning
The sun is rising, the sky is taking a marine blue color and the vine is still sleeping.
The vine grower has already removed the unavailing branches. Now remains the time that vine grower will come and weave the young branches into a shape of basket.
Petros Vamvakousis
Winery Manager
From the Wine Spiral Project…
Fitting with the quaint white structures of Santorini’s cliffsides, this winery in Megalohori, Greece includes an administration area, an exhibition and sales building and “Tholos,” the domed structure pictured above. Tastings and audio-visual presentations happen inside, but the real treat is outside, with the contrast of the buildings against the greens and blues of the island. Designed by Yannos Yanniotis.
Above: A Boutari grape harvester in the vineyards. The following dispatch was filed by Santorini enologist Ioanna Vamvakouri (not pictured) today, August 29.
From August 24-26, we completed the harvest in the Megalochori zone and started harvesting in Pirgos.
On August 26, we also harvested are own vineyard in Selladia.
On August 27, we began harvesting the Aidani and by tonight (August 29) we will have completed the pressing of white grapes.
Yesterday we started sun-drying the grapes for the Vinsanto.
The following dispatch was filed today by Boutari’s Santorini enologist Ioanna Vamvakouri.
We harvested the Athiri on August 12-13 and the harvest of Assyrtiko began on August 14 and is still in progress.
The grapes are cooled overnight at 10-12 C. The next day the grapes are sorted and about 20% of the higher quality fruit is macerated in the press for 1 to 3 hours and then is pressed. The remaining 80% is pressed without maceration.
Most of Athiri comes from our own vineyard in Selladia and the rest of it from the Akrotiri and Megalochori zones.
From August 14-18, we harvested the Assyrtiko in the vineyards of Akrotiri zone and from August 19-23 we proceeded to Megalochori.
This year grapes are of high quality without any disease. Vine moths are rare and are contained only in some parts of the vineyards. Total acidity of the grape is as usual high.
Aromas of the must still in fermentation are that of litchi, pear and white peach.
We are thrilled to post these photos, which arrived this morning, of harvest on Santorini. They were sent by Boutari’s Santorini enologist Ioanna Vamvakouri (see below).
Those are Athiri grapes above. And Aidani grapes below.
Ioanna will be sending us updates as harvest progresses. So stay tuned for more images and information.
Ioanna is one of three women winemakers who work for Boutari. She studied enology at the Bordeaux School of Enology and is one of a family of women winemakers who live and work on the island of Santorini.
Stay tuned!
“Is there anything normal about the wines of Santorini?” asks Snooth editor-in-chief Gregory Dal Piaz. “Don’t count on it. This black crescent of an island set against the blue Aegean and dotted with white outcroppings of life seems an unlikely place to live, much less grow grapes, but grow grapes they do and have been doing for centuries…”
Click here to read Gregory’s excellent account of his stay and tastings on the island.
Click here to read Wine & Spirits senior editor Tara Thomas' notes from a vertical tasting of Boutari Kallisti at the W&S Top of the List tasting event in New York City.
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