Day 20: Dangerous driving

Trip

Greece 2022

Location

Santorini 🇬🇷

Date

September 15, 2022

Vines in Santorini and the other Greek islands look like shrubs. Instead of having the vines grow on racks, they roll them on themselves, forming a sort of donut with the fruits in the middle. It captures the moisture and protects the fruits from the high winds. It only dawned on us after visiting vineyards that the large fields of evenly spaced shrubbery were likely where the grapes producing the wine we’ve been drinking were grown.

Santorini is known for its Vinsanto, a sweet dessert wine. For an island that was renamed for a saint and its cathedral, it’s unlikely that the name of their wine would be anything but the imaginative name of Vino di Santorini, further shortened to Vinsanto. If it was all a clever ploy to corner the church wine market, going with the wine of Saint Irene, making it sweet and low alcohol, were all great moves. Requiring an aging of at least eight years and producing it only on a small volcanic island in the Aegean Sea might not have been the best thought-out plan for world domination, however.

Santorini also produces other wines, mostly whites. Vinsanto might have around 10% alcohol, but the whites are quite a bit stronger, going to the 13% to 14% range. Assyrtico, the local grape, gives it a punchier taste. Most of them pair well with food, but won’t fare so well on their own as an Apéro. You’ll have to go for a mix of Assyrtico and something else, or go for something two to three years old for a smoother taste.

We rented a car today from a local agency. They rent mopeds, ATVs and a couple of vehicles. We were “upgraded” from a Nissan Micra to a Fiat cabriolet. While they are more in the “rent a wreck” price range, they take the category too seriously. Our Fiat had a broken roof with aluminum struts falling out, brakes that were on the bare metal and announced our presence to the neighbourhood, low tire pressures, scratches and gouges on every body part and no gas in the tank. Perfect to add spice to an otherwise easy day. They also had the nerve to try and ask Karine for more money, challenging us on the damage, gas level and time of return. Considering we brought it back without a single new ding, with more gas in the tank and an hour early, they didn’t have a leg to stand on. A fact that Karine, a little tipsy from all the wine tasting, might have made very clear to them.

Before going to taste wine and visit wineries, we headed to Ancient Thera. It’s a beautiful archaeological site. The views themselves are well worth the visit. There’s very little information on the site, but the different buildings you see are notable. Getting to the site requires an almost two-kilometre drive up switchbacks. It can be done by car off-season, and if we had a reliable car with working brakes, we would have driven up. Not trusting our lives to break pads that probably came with the car five years ago, we parked at the bottom and walked for thirty minutes up the switchbacks. A decent amount of exercise can help us burn off the calories we’ll be getting from the wine.

From there, we started our winery tour. We planned for four, but ended up doing three. The tasting portions were generous at two out of three, and Karine, the official taster, was getting tipsy. We started at the Argyros Estate, which bottles about 400,000 units a year, and allowed us to discover our first delicious rosé in Greece.

We continued at Hatzidakis Winery, which was the only one to do a real tasting portion for their six wine, including two vintages of their 100% Assyrtico wine. The older the wine gets, the more rounded and less punchy it is. That’s where we discovered that the sweet spot for Assyrtico should be around two to three years old. They produce unfiltered, organic wine, and while the younger stuff is rougher, when aged, it’s smooth and to our liking.

The last stop was Boutari. A large wine producer with multiple vineyards across Greece. They claim to be the oldest on the island on a technicality. They introduced modern wine-making techniques to the island, claiming to be the first to produce wine, despite other wineries having manually crafted Vinsanto for a century before their arrival. Got to love marketing. Their wine tasting portions, essentially half a glass, are both generous and dangerous. A six-wine tasting will not only introduce you to wines produced outside the island but will also have you drink about half a bottle of wine in an hour. Driver, beware of the wine tasting.

The day ended with dinner at Idol. The food was well executed, presented beautifully, and came with a bill that perfectly captured our impression of Santorini. On that island, visitors are very well treated by farm animals, and they are being milked for all they are worth. So it’s hard to complain since everything is high quality (except the cars), but one can’t help but feel inside a well-tuned machine designed to extract your money from you.