Wine tasting, Santorini Island

Santo Wines’ modern winery along with its Oenotoursm Center, is located in the traditional Santorini village of Pyrgos and welcomes more than 80,000 visitors every year from all over the world. Situated on the top of the caldera cliff, with a magnificent view of Santorini’s volcano and the Aegean Sea, visitors may learn about the vineyards and winemaking traditions of Santorini as well as sample the unique taste of Santo Wine by having a glass from the Santo Wine Bar.

For group visits contact Santo Wines at promo@santowines.gr or by telephone:
+30 22860 28058

Visit Boutari Winery and sample their offerings. There are several options, including one that includes a tour of the winery. We simply tasted a flight of wines-- about six, I think. There is a charge, so be sure to pay at the counter before you leave! (I forget how much, but it was very reasonable.)

I actually embarassed myself a bit by failing to hold back my "Ewwww!" upon tasting the much-too-sweet-for-my-taste dessert wine -- all the other tasters wanted to know what it was I'd just sipped!

Santorini is an island with a very interesting history about wine and you shouldn't miss to visit some of the winneries! Since driving and drinking is not recommended, you should try a semi private wine tour with expertised sommelier Vaios from " Santorini Wine Tour". He is a great guide-enthusiastic,knowledgable and very pleasant and amiable to spend three hours with.Not only did we get to taste fine wines, visit award-winning wineries, and learn all about the wine-making process, but Vaios gave us valuable history about Santorini and drove us all over the island during our tour!

For all wine-enthusiast or not, visit www.santoriniwinetour.com for more informations!

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Santorini is blessed with wineries and I happened to go into Santo Wines on my motor scooter. You can take tours of several wineries and they can be arranged by any of the many travel agents on the island. Wine making on Santorini began about 3000 B.C. helped by great environmental conditions. The 850 growers on this small island all belong to the Viticultural Co-operative who manage vineyards on 6,276 acres of land. That may not sound like much, but it is fully 1/3 of all the land on the island!

Please make sure you drink at least one bottle of Santoini wine while you are here. It helps the local economy, tastes good and helps you dance better.

For those of us who enjoy a bit of local flavour then a visit or two to the vineyards here on Santorini is a bit of a must do - purely of course to expand one’s cultural experience ;) And culture is what it’s all about. Santorini wines are pretty much unique in that the micro-climate here on the Island, with no fresh water supplies and an arid and hot windy environment for much of the year, means that the grapevines are grown in a particular manner.

Unlike European vines, whose parallel upright lines can occupy whole south-facing banks of their respective valleys in a perfectly regimental fashion, those here on the Island are by necessity trained to form horizontal wreathlike-like stalks with almost random coverage. The plants rarely exceed a meter in height and sprawl weed-like in the ashen soil, often in fields no bigger than perhaps half a soccer pitch .

The only watering that most of the vineyards get is the early morning dewy distillation as the pre-dawn sea mists roll across the Island. Moisture is absorbed by the volcanic pumice embedded in the lava rock undercore, captured in the coolness before the mists are burnt off by the rising sun.

What this effectively means is that whilst an average, say Rhone Valley vineyard, can produce as much as 4000 kilos of grapes per acre, here on Santorini a maximum yield will be about 10% of this. Thus the Santorini winemakers must concentrate on producing quality wines, rather than those for mass consumption.

There are a total, at last count, of 10 wineries here on the Island, several of which have “open” wine-tasting sessions, certainly during the summer. All are more than happy to arrange group tours - for more definitive info pick up a free copy of the “Santorini Guidebook” or visit www.santorini.net which has a downloadable PDF file

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GEORGE KOUTSOYANNOPOULOS WINERY & WINE MUSEUM
An hour spent in a museum situated 6 metres below the earth’s surface and extended for 300 m.; founded in 1870, still a family business.
Ticket price: € 6 (it includes the tasting of 3 wines). Program: 10.00-20.00

I unfortunately do not have enough specifics to make this tip great, but I definitely just want to remind anyone venturing to Santorini to certainly do atleast one wine tasting. Just grab a cab and request one (theres three or four all in the same area on the island.) My family and I went to two, we all liked the first one better (it was a bit rustic, but had 4 great house wines.) From the vineyards you can order shipments of the local vino for back home, and get great one-on-one treatment from the staff, as there are never many tourists in the wine hills.

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Boutari is one of the major wineries on Santorini. They offer tastings every day from 10:00 AM until 6:00 PM. A tasting will cost you anywhere from 6 to 10 euros, depending on how many wines you get to taste (I think the options range from 4 wines to 8 or 10). You can also purchase a cheese plate to go along with your wine. They have a shop in the building where you can buy any of the wines they produce, to take with you, or to have shipped pretty much anywhere in the world. The wines are pretty good, and are reasonably priced. My wife and I ordered a case of Vinsanto, a dessert wine which is a local specialty.