THE REBIRTH OF THE CRETAN WINE

Twenty years ago a small revolution in the field of wine started in Greece. A revolution that strengthened Greek wine production in the beginning of the 21st century, with creative wine producers, quality wines, fresh ideas, fine vineyards, Greek and foreigner varieties, a lot of bottles, and mainly a very promising future.  

This picture though showed to be representative only for the continental Greece, not really touching the southern part of the Greek wine map, which of course includes Crete. The delayed invasion of phylloxera (a parasite that destroys the roots of the vine), in the island in 1974 was an important reason that Cretan wine did not follow the course of other Greek wines. The '70s might seem very back in the past for some of us, however if someone considers that a vineyard definitely needs ten years in order to produce grapes for quality wine, then it is obvious that thirty years is not a very long period for an agricultural region to be reconstructed, especially after a blow of a strong opponent such as the phylloxera.
At the same time, the various socio-economic conditions of the following years, such as the rural depopulation, the urbanism and the spread of tourism all over the island, contributed to a large extent to the neglect of the Cretan wine.

All these factors though are history. The Cretan wine slowly but surely claims for some years now its share and gains attention and preference day by day. New people in the field have their own contribution trying to improve the image of the Cretan wine in the market. By saying new people we do not necessarily mean in terms of age, but we refer to all those that have decided to face the big challenge called “wine'” with knowledge, vision and zest...

MAROUSSA TSAHAKI