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krasí

κρασί

Several examples of Greek wines from Santorini ranging from whites with no oak, slightly oaked whites, roses and red wines.

Wine. A big subject that deserves its own app, but here are a few notes on special Greek grapes, classifications and wine words you may need. Some of the oldest signs of wine-making have been found in Greece, dating back to c. 6500 BC.

Even so, Dionysos, the god of wine (and theatre, and ecstasy before it became a drug, although he'd probably be the god of that, too!) was a johnny-come-lately to Olympus. But in many ways he was the most interesting of all the gods.

Le culte de Dionysos (Altes Museum, Berlin)

But Greek wine wasn't always interesting. For travellers in the 1960s and 70s, ordering krasí in a taverna usually meant either retsína or not retsina, which would be white or red Demestica from the Peloponnese, which elicited much merriment among British tourists who called it 'Domestos' after the bleach company (it wasn't that bad, and Achaia Clauss still sells a much improved version and exports quite a bit to Germany).

Wine Words

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Drinks

PDO, PGI, and TIP

Text © Dana Facaros

Images by Herry Lawford, Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, Marcelo Costa, Napoleon Vier, Creative Commons License