When (Somewhat) Funny Writing Pays

Several months back, Interval International, a leading global provider of membership and leisure services to the vacation industry, somehow came across this cracker of a blog and commissioned me to write an article on Paphos wineries for its UK-based members. Here's the result, snazzy photos and all.

By the way, plenty of thanks to the kind folks at Vouni Panayia, Ezousa, Fikardos, Vassilikon and Tsalapatis for taking the time to meet with me, talk shop and add oodles of bottles to my wine collection.

 

Squashing It

Entrance, Fikardos Winery

At first glance, there's not much to Fikardos Winery. Located in an industrial area off the main road to Tsada from Paphos, the converted warehouse does not have the awe-inspiring views of other Cypriot wineries nor is it surrounded by vineyards. A small, simple lobby with a long table for tastings and white walls showcasing multiple awards at local and international competitions lead to a large open area where owner and winemaker Theodoros Fikardos, Cypriot wine's mad scientist, plies his trade. Fikardos Fikardos, Theodoros' dashing, well-spoken oldest son, greeted The Wife, Ph.D., and me by the entrance and immediately engaged us in conversation while we awaited the arrival of Elena Sophocleous Toth of WineriesCyprus.com and her charming entourage of husband + kids.

Father & Son

Per Fikardos' account, the winery was established more than twenty years ago with the fall of the Soviet Union. A significant decrease in Cypriot exports of sherry and raisins meant vineyards were readily available and wine production became a viable option for small business owners. Technical consultants were brought from abroad to study the island's terroir and determine which varieties best suited Cyprus. This push, said Fikardos, introduced noble varieties like Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay and partly displaced indigenous varieties, a move that is now being rectified as winemakers are more eager to work with Maratheftiko ("The diva of the Cypriot vineyard!" said Elena), Xynisteri and lesser known grapes like Promara, Spourtiko and Giannoudi. Theodoros, who owned a restaurant and had a tingling for wine, took the plunge and set up his operation at its current location, a space so massive Fikardos has considered building a squash court for those slow days at the office. Fikardos also told us they had plans to build a new winery in Pano Arodes, next to their three-year old vineyards, but the financial crisis struck and put a halt to that.

With a glass of free-run Semillon juice as thirst quencher and a few bunches of chilled Cabernet Sauvignon grapes as snacks, our visit was less tour and more lively conversation about all-things Cyprus wine followed by an extensive tasting of Fikardos' portfolio.

Squash Anyone?

On Wine Competitions: Fikardos made it clear that it is too expensive to send all of their wines, or at least many of them, to compete for accolades. Some contests charge up to 500 Euros per allotment, he explained. What they do is randomly select a few to ship off and hope for the best. I asked about the lauded 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon, Grand Gold Medal winner in Thessaloniki, and he chuckled. His father wasn't planning on attending the event until he got a call from an excited friend urging him to show up for the announcement of the results. Upon receiving the award, the Cab sold out within days, except for a few bottles that are available at the winery for 25 Euros a pop. I've had this wine on two occasions and it's remarkably good even though I thought it needed to age for a few years. The inky deep violet wine has a bouquet marked by cassis, dark berries, coffee, leather and dark chocolate, and a palate dominated by smooth, chewy tannins, an excellent full-bodied structure and hints of black berries and cinnamon with a long sour finish.

On Fikardos' Wine Portfolio: It's widely known throughout The Rock that Theodoros Fikardos loves to experiment when making wine. At one point in time, the winery had more than twenty different labels out in the market. His son, who recently completed his studies in Food Marketing and Economics, has been trying to curtail his father's penchant for experimentation. The winery now produces 14 wines (6 whites, 2 roses and 6 reds if I am not mistaken), and Theodoros is only allowed to add one if he removes another. Talk about pressure. For instance, after many years, their Lefkada has been discontinued. There is a fifteenth wine, Sunnama, a limited edition dessert wine made Commandaria-style but with the Malaga variety that is available only at the winery for about 20 Euros. I asked whether they had ever experimented with bubblies, and Fikardos told us they hadn't as the costs to produce a good sparkling wine (via proper methods) are rather prohibitive.

Tasting Room

Their Most Popular Wine: Without a doubt, said Fikardos, it's Valentina, a semi-sweet rose that screams spicy food and remains the preferred choice of many visitors. If I recall correctly, Fikardos mentioned that sales of Valentina amount to more than half of the winery's total sales. The Wife, Ph.D., and I had it following our afternoon at the winery with pollo saltado, a piquant Peruvian chicken stir fry, and it matched nicely. This Cabernet Sauvignon-Mataro rose has a vibrant bouquet of candied strawberries, cranberries and pomegranate with similar candied flavours on the palate without being cloyingly sweet.

On Spourtiko: Fikardos Winery is one of two local wineries currently working with Spourtiko, an indigenous Cypriot variety that has taken a backseat to better-known Xynisteri. The grape is very thin skinned and therefore fragile, and the bunches are loosely packed. One positive of this variety, he said, is that it helps Maratheftiko (what a diva!) pollinate. This grape makes a very delicate, fresh and easy drinking white (we sampled the 2013) with aromas of lemon zest, white flowers and a touch of passion fruit. It is light bodied with decent acidity yet relatively short with hints of tangerine, lime and sour fruits dominating throughout.

Baptising Their Wines: Theodoros Fikardos names most of his wines after either family/friends or Greek goddesses. Valentina, for instance, is his daughter, and Leonardo, a higher-end red that varies in makeup from year to year (2012 is a single-estate Shiraz), is his youngest son. An amused Fikardos told us he cannot complain as his name is on every single bottle released.

Fikardos & Our Line-Up

Family Pride: Fikardos is very proud of the winery as the ultimate family-run business. Decision-making on all fronts is done in a democratic manner involving the winery's six team members. Outside help is brought in occasionally, yet Fikardos foresees their team multiplying once their grapes in Pano Arodes reach proper maturity and require more meticulous care throughout the season.

Long gone are the days when Cypriots matched their meals with whiskey, says a pensive Fikardos. The younger generations are learning more and more about wine, attending lectures, participating in tastings, visiting wineries. Of course, I concur. We bid adieu, until next time. Our cars are heavier from the bottles sideways in our trunks, our taste buds tingle from the line-up. Fikardos Winery is in good hands, we tell ourselves. Yes, it definitely is.

Hunting for (Grand) Gold

A Friday quick-hitter. Results are in for the 13th Thessaloniki International Wine Competition (which took place from March 4th to the 6th, 2013) and, surprise, surprise, one of our own received one of the three Grand Gold Medals awarded. Besides the grand prize, KEO, Kolios and SODAP garnered a Gold medal each. I'd be curious to know how many of The Rock's wineries submitted samples this year since (usually) many more of them are commended. Voila the results.

Grand Gold Medal

2011 Fikardos Winery Cabernet Sauvignon

Gold Medal

KEO Saint John Commandaria

2009 Kolios Cabernet Sauvignon

2012 SODAP Maratheftiko Rose

By the way, Nicosia, you can track down Fikardos Winery's 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon vintage at Oinotria Wine Cellar on Themistokli Dervi.

Pastel Pink Mummies

The Wife, Ph.D.'s Latest Nightmare

One morning a few months ago The Wife, Ph.D., and I ran out of toilet paper. Colorful IKEA napkins and a couple packs of pocket-sized tissues were on standby just in case I couldn't track down extra-soft, fragrant and medicinal rolls at the convenience store just two blocks from our apartment. The selection wasn't remarkable, but a six-pack of pastel pink toilet paper printed with evenly distributed strawberries or dandelions (depending on the angle) caught my attention with its "Buy One, Get One Free" seduction ploy. Maybe it was the paper's shades of creamy-beetroot-and-mayonnaise salad that seduced me or the fact that deep down I stalk all types of bargains. The Wife, Ph.D., took one look at the puffy tubes and for a minute I feared she would wrap me in all that pink paper during my sleep, turning me into a flowered mummy Michael Kors would have been proud of calling his own creation. Her distaste for pink TP sparked my own revelation—Cyprus rosé season was upon us.

In the past, rosé wines never really rocked my kayak. However, as I sampled more and more of The Rock's rosé, the diverse bottlings made both with local and foreign varieties grew on me and have become a spring and summer staple chez nous. Unlike the toilet paper, The Wife, Ph.D., loves their fruitiness and freshness, and I agree with my friend AK-47 when he says that it's one of the better accompaniments to the schizophrenic spread—from crisp greens to grilled meats to saucy stews—known as Cyprus meze. Some bottles—the Zambartas rosé made of Cabernet Franc and Lefkada comes to mind—have become cult-classics, selling out quicker than the time it takes me to mock The Wife, Ph.D., on these pages. Besides Commandaria, I have no hesitation whatsoever asserting that, across-the-board, rosés are the best wines being produced on The Rock.

2011 Aes Ambelis Rosé (Maratheftiko & Lefkada)

Consumers, as well as the international and local press, seem to think alike. When I spoke to Theodoros Fikardos of Fikardos Winery at last year's Limassol Wine Festival, he pointed out that his clients' most beloved wines are his dry and medium rosés, Iocasti and Valentina. Furthermore, wine journalist Yiannos Constantinou extols on the virtues of The Rock's rosés throughout his Cyprus Wine Guide, probably the leading book on Cyprus wines. Likewise, year in, year out, Angela Muir, regional chair for Central & Eastern Europe in the Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA), highly recommends these wines to visitors but warns consumers to stick to the current year's vintage to enjoy maximum freshness and flavor. Personally, I find it mind-boggling that (last time I checked) The Mall's Carrefour still shelved many bottles of the 2007 (?!?) Sodap Kamantarena rosé, a wine that's definitely way past its prime and might taste like some of the really old plonk I uncorked as a joke with My Zolpidem Supplier one merry Sunday morning. This oversight is a true pity since this wine's 2010 vintage won a Silver Medal at last year's DWWA. 

What's great about The Rock's rosés is that wineries are crafting them with many different varieties, creating a wide array of distinct aromas, flavor profiles and vibrant hues. Meant to be drank young, these playful wines explode upon being uncorked with the scent of raspberries, cherries, cranberries, strawberries, pomegranate, red roses, violets and/or wild herbs, among others. To the palate, the drier ones are fresh, crisp and abundantly acidic, while those with some residual sugar (off-dry) feel weightier yet remain thirst-quenching when served at a temperature between 5 and 8 degrees Celsius. Ultimately, they are not ultra-complex but they do a fine job once the scorching heat rolls in and you spend your afternoons preparing asparagus omelets with the sidewalk as a skillet. Keep in mind that not all Cyprus rosés are great but lately I haven't come across a disappointing bottle. Besides the aforementioned, some of my favorites are Aes Ambelis (Maratheftiko & Lefkada), Ezousa (Maratheftiko) and Hadjiantonas (Cabernet Sauvignon & Shiraz). Additionally, people I trust—Cousin #2 and Radio Free Cyprus—rave about Tsangarides Winery's rosé (Shiraz), a wine I have not had the good fortune to try. The day I do, though, rest assured I will spill some all over a white tablecloth and force The Wife, Ph.D. to pat the splotches dry with some sea salt and bargain toilet paper.

2011 Aes Ambelis Rose (Maratheftiko & Lefkada) - I chose this wine to launch our humble abode's 2012 rosé season. Vibrant aroma of roses, strawberry and pomegranate. Candied strawberries and other red berries on the palate. Syrupy with good length and a nice lingering sweetness. 87/100.

2011 Zambartas Rose (Lefkada & Cabernet Franc) - Lovely red fruit (cranberry and pomegranate) on the nose with just a hint of sweetness. Bright red fruit (red apple?) throughout the palate with a tangy finish. Good acidity but not as remarkable as past years' vintages. 86/100.

2011 Tsangarides Rose (Shiraz) - Tame nose with hints of sour cherries and cranberry. Dry to the mouth with notes of raspberry and a lively acidity. In my opinion, lacked some flavor and length. 85/100.

Timber, I Say

I adore satire. And sardonicism. And pitch-dark humor. The bleaker the joke, the louder the cackle. Maybe not that weak one ricocheting against your throat's walls and trickling out of your unimpressed mouth, but definitely the diabolical version inside my own disturbed head. People warned me not to get too excited about the Limassol Wine Festival—now in its fiftieth year of existence—and assured me it wasn't worth the visit from Nicosia. I ignored them, knowing all too well that my penchant for sarcasm would pave the way and hopefully produce a post microscopically quark-like reminiscent of the late David Foster Wallace's masterpiece, Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise, on his misadventures aboard a Celebrity Cruises Inc., ship. Obviously, with tasting notes instead of short stories for footnotes.

After a forty-minute drive south with The Wife, Ph.D., My Zolpidem Supplier and Cousin #4 as my mockery-control valves, we arrived at the festival's gates. By the ticket counter, street vendors, mostly Asian immigrants, sold colorful comedic balloons, cheap Chinese trinkets for children, flowers for the romantic couples, and fake designer purses for the stingy posers amongst us. A gigantic fluorescent sign hung from the main archway into the park and blinked in segments, momentarily reconstituting itself into an outdated kitschy logo of sorts (purple grapes, green leaves, pink, white and blue lettering) for the festival. This did not bode well for the event but, unlike The Wife, Ph.D., I have learned not to judge a bottle by its label so I paid the €10 entry fee (included one free bottle of entry-level wine) and treaded in with an open mind.

Four large elevated decks, two on each side and each one sponsored by one of the four wine conglomerates (Sodap, ETKO, KEO and LOEL), served as base for the promotion of their respective wines. These were impressive productions, chock-full of photographs of bottles, vineyards and wineries as backdrops to long bar areas where a handful of employees served customers tastings of their simpler, more affordable selections. Other than the faux oak barrel wine dispenser used by Sodap, these pavilions were rather classy and did a fine job representing the "corporate" side of The Rock's wine industry. Also nearby, several booths handed out brochures on The Rock's wine regions and useful maps of the different wine routes available to wine aficionados. Unfortunately, right in the middle, behind a bizarrely-lit spouting fountain, stood the eight-meter statue. A mustachioed man decked in a vraka (black baggy pants that would make MC Hammer salivate and break out in dance), a white ruffled chemise, dark combat boots and a burgundy vest, like a determined fencer or conquistador upon the discovery of land, one arm pointing towards the sea with a ceramic wine carafe in hand, the other behind him, a bunch of red grapes hanging from its fingertips. At its foot, a grammatically-skewed message to the revelers, "Drink wine for better life," and dozens of tourists smiling and posing for their flashes. "Back to square one," I thought while looking up into the as-humid-as-a-hamam night and scratching my head trying to decipher the statue's aesthetic value. I am certain, though, the figurine has been around since the beginning of time, and on its days off from scaring tourist children at the festival probably poorly decorates a random hotel lobby or traditional tavern.

We each bought an inscribed tumbler (€2.50) for the free tastings and went off in search of quality. Besides the four bigs, we came across smaller booths for Erimoudes, Agia Mavri, Linos and Fikardos wineries. Business card in hand, I introduced myself to Mr. Theodoros Fikardos, owner and winemaker of the latter, a Pafos-based operation renowned for favoring experimentation and releasing at least a dozen different wines ranging from dry to fit for a honey bee. After dropping a few names to make myself appear more important than in reality, I grilled him for ten minutes on his wines and invited myself over to his winery for a tour following completion of the 2011 harvest. Generally, most of my questions veer towards Maratheftiko, the difficult to grow yet versatile and most interesting red indigenous grape of Cyprus. Mr. Fikardos definitely "believes in Maratheftiko" despite having to deal with its problematic growth; some years, he said, Cypriot wineries have nearly 250 tons of the grape to work with whereas during others that figure is cut in half. Not that he needs those extra grapes given his love for playing the mad oenologist, coming up with distinct blends and making wines from grapes that other winemakers would deem unsuited for The Rock's terroir. For instance, he likes to "experiment with little-known indigenous varieties like Spourtiko," sometimes producing between four-to-five thousand bottles for people to taste and provide him with comments. According to Mr. Fikardos, only through experimentation can one "see what works in Cyprus" and learn. When pressed to list the wines he's proudest of, his two rosés—Iocasti (dry) and Valentina (medium)—were at the forefront, both too longtime favorites of his diverse clientele. I still remember thoroughly enjoying a bottle of Iocasti with Asian food and The Wife, Ph.D., on one of our battery-recharging retreats to Aphrodite Hills Resort. At the end of the day, Mr. Fikardos told me, he "works for his clients and not himself." 

As the number of tourists piled up next to the counter, I shook his hand goodbye, still feeling the remnants of the five wines I tasted tingling inside my mouth. In retrospect, stepping aside was the wisest decision; sweat trickled down my face and spine and The Wife, Ph.D.'s felt obliged to repeatedly pat me dry with a bundle of rough toilet paper and lavender-scented baby-butt wipes. Worst of all, in a misguided effort to refresh myself, I tried jumping into the small grape-stomping vat set up for the children's amusement but several mothers eyed me suspiciously. I just shrugged and then skipped back down the stairs. Damn beard.

This being Cyprus, tons of food stands busied the festival's gardens. Medium-sized box trailers had been retooled à la MacGyver (or A-Team if you're even older) into grills that spun kilos of lamb and pork over burning coal. Handwritten signs, many of them with embarrassing spelling mistakes, announced the sale of salted herrings and roast chicken. Twine sacks loaded with all kinds of nuts and dried fruit were scooped up into bags and served as snacks, while local sweets, too gooey and luscious in my opinion to match most wines, had people frantically looking for water. Loud machines whirled colorful clouds of sugary threads and pots with bubbling oil fried golf-sized balls of dough that were then sent for another swim in honey. The Wife, Ph.D., overtly sensitive to ovine meat, sniffed out a shack that sold resi, a wheat and lamb pilaf previously unknown to me and of much popularity at communal village weddings. If I hadn't made reservations for sushi at Roku, I would have probably tried it and washed it down with the 2010 Sodap Kamanterena Lefkada Rosé I bought at the Sodap pavilion since it's an awarded vintage that I have been hard-pressed to find in the capital.

An hour later, we left the grounds, lugging several bottles of cheap Xynisteri, our pimp festival-themed glasses, stacks of informational wine brochures and our dignity intact. I admit the festival needs work. The logos are old fashioned and somewhat tacky. The best boutique wineries (Zambartas, Vlassides et al) were not present. A copy editor has to be hired for the sake of consistency and the "goodest" usage of the English language. An air-conditioned bubble must be erected over the municipal park to avoid salty secretions and unwanted bodily odors from interfering with one's olfactory sense when properly tasting wine. There's plenty of room for another wooden vat in which women in skimpy farm-girl outfits representing different Cypriot wine villages wrestle for their town's honor (Koilani vs. Omodos!) over a bed of de-stemmed Mavro grapes while bored men place their bets either in cash or in-kind (piglets, bags of field cucumbers, trays of homemade pastichio, their mother-in-law, etc.) In all seriousness, however, the festival was quite entertaining. Being among people—mainly tourists—of so many different nationalities, talking to winemakers in a festive environment, and casually drinking wine without thinking about tannins, alcohol levels, acidity or aroma provided us with a much-needed change of pace from our daily lives in Nicosia. One thing's for sure: I will be back next year, loaded with business cards, an empty stomach, a jovial disposition and a powerful chainsaw to bring down MC Mustachio. Don't want him spooking my kids in the future. Timber, I say.