‘We face three challenges,’ stated Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, the e-mail’s creator, once I caught up with him and fellow grower Stellios Boutaris in early 2025, shortly earlier than the February earthquakes that added to Santorini’s simmering stresses. Yiannis co-owns the 13ha Gaia vineyard, whereas Stellios’ Ktima Kir-Yianni has just lately turn out to be the proprietor of the 40ha Domaine Sigalas vineyard, in addition to partnering with Paris Sigalas for his new Santorini enterprise Oeno P. ‘Lack of rain, manpower and tourism.’
Collectively they make a cocktail poisonous sufficient to name into query a future for one of many world’s most distinctive terroir wines. ‘The pattern strains,’ stated Yiannis, ‘present that there will likely be no extra grapes by 2041. We’ll attempt to make it possible for gained’t occur, however in 20 years we could solely have one third of the winery left.’
The island’s 1,000ha sometimes produce round 2,200 tonnes of grapes, however final yr (in Stellios’ phrases) ‘every little thing went flawed – winter and spring had been very heat, we had April hail, we had actually dangerous winds, we had two large heatwaves’. After 2023’s meagre 1,100 tonnes, 2024 introduced the islands’ growers simply 750 tonnes. ‘To separate amongst 18 wineries,’ Yiannis factors out. Costs for grapes and wine have soared and clients are beginning to baulk. ‘Even the Japanese,’ says Stellios. ‘They don’t cut price and all the time politely say sure. Till they politely say no.’
‘Younger guys,’ Yiannis factors out, ‘don’t wish to work below the solar within the filth any extra,’ even those that personal scraps of winery. Gaia and Sigalas deliver employees from the mainland, home them expensively and know that they’ll depart once more after a couple of years. Younger Santorini house owners, in the meantime, don’t wish to promote their inherited, unworked vineyards… except it’s expensively, for vacationer growth.
Ah sure: tourism. Some 3.4 million persons are stated to have visited Santorini in 2023, packing the tiny island. My solely keep was again in June 2007, but even then the tiny streets had been so crowded {that a} brisk stroll wasn’t potential. The resort I stayed in had been commandeered by a Chinese language bride and groom who had flown in specifically from Beijing – simply to take some dramatic wedding ceremony images. ‘All of the minibuses on the island make a snake 17km lengthy,’ says Yiannis, ‘but our longest street is just 25km.’ The richest vacationers pay €500 for a three-minute helicopter hop from the airport to their accommodations to keep away from the 90-minute street crawl.
Santorini’s mayor is a wine producer: Nikos Zorzos of the pioneering Venetsanos. ‘I do know the place the place I used to be born,’ he stated in an extempore speech to a tourism convention on the island of Paros in April 2024, ‘and I’ve problem in recognising it at present. The id of a spot can be its distinctiveness,’ he continued, and Santorini’s ‘reckless and irrational fee of growth’ has ‘already led to important issues, and it’ll result in even higher issues. What’s the level at which we go from growth to destruction?’ Certainly. But Zorzos is now into his third time period (he first grew to become mayor in 2010) and growth continues. Is that this battle even winnable? A plan to hunt UNESCO World Heritage standing was argued down by islanders themselves.
Maybe solely Santorini’s wines could make the island’s agricultural case. I tasted three of the 2024s (Gaia’s Thalassitis and Wild Ferment, and the Sigalas Assyrtiko) shortly after my dialog with Yiannis and Stellios. Regardless of the minuscule crop, they had been excellent: contemporary but wealthy. Lemon, sun-warmed stone, sea spray, wrapped up in lithe, energetic and textured wines that convey place extra effortlessly and memorably than many white Burgundies at twice the value. In case you love them, help them.
In my glass this month
One other signal of the standard potential of Santorini Assyrtiko lies in its single-vineyard cuvées. The Sigalas, Kavalieros 2022 (£59.99 Hedley Wright) is pungent and masterful; whereas Gaia’s Ammonite 2022 (from Elias Zorzos’ Thalassina [‘things of the sea’] winery; £82-£85 Epinoia, Strictly Wine) is extra purely fruity, filled with bitter grapefruit and lemon, although with loads of sea tang, too. They represent benchmarks for terroir expression – whereas additionally sitting on the Crimson Checklist of endangered wine species.
