I had a wonderful time in Athens and Santorini with some great friends. Santorini is a beautiful island off the coast of Greece. We enjoyed a great wine tour with Santorini Wine Adventure Wine Tours and Anton Lianoudakis as our tour guide. Anton explained a great deal about Santorini history and the growing of wine grapes on the island. The Minoan civilization on Crete, a neighboring island of Santorini, learned about the Egyptian winemaking methods. Grapes were an important crop to Greece and the Greek islands. Santorini is a volcanic island, so its soil is rich with minerals that help sustain the grape vines. The Santorinians will throw in a few fava or other beans to help enrich the soil around the vine (cool fact!). Many insects cannot survive in the soil, so they do not use pesticides as a general rule. In effect, they’re growing organic grapes. However, given it is a relatively hot climate, the more prevalent grapes grown are white grapes, such as the Assyrtiko grape. Most of the vines are not grown on a wire, but are pruned to grow in a bird’s nest shape. This shape helps protect the grapes from the hot climate and higher winds. Santorini wines do not give wine drinkers headaches like most other wines because they don’t use pesticides or most other chemicals to grow the grapes. I’m all for scientific validation, so a few of my Wine-Loving Lab Mice and I decided to put that to the test. I would be considered the “control” in that experiment in that I drink wine pretty consistently therefore this experiment doesn’t vary from my everyday life. There were a couple of variable mice, in this experiment, who enjoy wine as much as I do, but demonstrate “control” in their everyday life by not partaking as consistently as I do. The results are in. Those wines did not give any of the control or variable mice a headache. The mice had a wine party every night even in the presence of a few stray cats that hung out with us. We, of course, also enjoyed cheese pairing with our wine. The Santorinian whites are crisp and lighter white wines with some having apple, melon or pear essence. They are not oaky as a general rule. They are a great wine for just drinking wine on a hot day or pairing with chicken, fish or some lighter dishes. However, the Santorinians can make a good dessert wine as well so check those out if you can find them. I’ve confirmed that Total Wines does have some Santorinian wines, but you can also find them on Wine.com.
Have a great week!
A great blend of wine and wisdom