Three for Monday #3

* Excellent piece in The Jerusalem Post on wine production in the eastern Mediterranean with a focus on countries neighboring Israel. Two paragraphs are dedicated to Cyprus, and Sodap Kamanterena, Vlassides, Zambartas and Kyperounda are mentioned.

* "For proper investment in wine you really need to separate out your personal taste and your personal preference from investment purposes. These are two entirely different goals." Check out this Reuters article for some handy tips on how to make a buck or two thousand on wine.

* A map of Santorini with the location of all of its wineries courtesy of Santorini Wine Adventure!

Well, Not All of Us Age Like Clooney

A week ago, My Zolpidem Supplier, The Wife, Ph.D., and I met at Vinocultura for Whine On The Rocks' second ever vertical tasting. Our first was a roughshod affair on a balcony in Limassol involving various excellent vintages of Domaine Vlassides Cabernet Sauvignon. This one, instead, exuded class—multiple sparkling glasses, an oenologist as guide, spittoons, a crowd of thirty-plus oenophiles, and wines for sale. What's rather interesting was the wine selected for the vertical, Kyperounda Winery's Petritis, made of the indigenous grape Xynisteri, which (for all intent and purposes) is meant to be consumed within a year or two of release. Unlike other Xynisteris, though, Petritis "spends 6 months in stainless steel, 3 months in oak barrels and 6 months on the lees," a process that certainly extends its lifetime as evinced from the vertical. Besides this specific choice in wine-making, Kyperounda also boasts of south-facing, high-altitude (roughly 1,400 meters above sea level!) vineyards in an area with one of the lowest relative humidity levels on the island.

Kyperounda oenologist, Minas Mina, who was onsite to lead us through the tasting and answer our questions, also commented briefly on Maratheftiko, the big-berried, thin-skinned, pain-in-the-ass-to-grow variety that most experts claim is the most promising grape on The Rock. He ascertained that its production is extremely difficult, and that this year, for example, for the one hectare of Maratheftiko planted by the winery, the yield was a rather meager 200 kilograms.

Anyhow, without further ado, our noggins, palates and imagination at work:

Kyperounda Petritis 2012 — Bottled three weeks or so ago so it might need some time to develop. Waxy, white pepper, rather closed nose. Palate defined by citrus, apricots, some floral components and a touch of honey. Ranked 5 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2011 — Pleasant sweet nose with touches of honey and caramel. Great acidity on the palate with a grapefruit, citrus finish. Ranked 3 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2010 — Here the wine starts to yellow a bit. Smoky, dusty nose with a hint of flowers. Much fuller to the mouth but with diluted taste and little finish. Ranked 6 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2009 — This vintage won a Grand Gold Medal at the 5th Cyprus Wine Competition. Lovely bread-y nose with nuances of stone fruits and quince. Again, much fuller, very smooth with stone fruit rounding out the palate. Ranked 2 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2008 — Undisputed best in show. Great acidity, smooth, citrus finish with hints of honey. Feels awfully fresh for a five-year old Xynisteri. Minas told us that the 2011, 2008 and 2005 vintages were very similar given those years' cool summers. Here's hoping the 2011 develops as nicely as this one. Ranked 1 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2007 — Sweetcorn (high levels of dymethil sulfide?) and vegetal nose. Practically flat with little body or flavor profile. Granted, it might have been unfair to follow the stellar 2008 with this clunker. Ranked 8 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2005 — Again, a touch of sweetcorn matched with some smokiness, leather and cedar. Good acidity for an 8-year old. Long finish, smooth and remarkably sweet. Not quite sure whether it is peaking or already on its downhill. Still, ranked 4 out of 8.

Kyperounda Petritis 2003 — Better than 2007 but also felt flat. A smidgeon oxidized. Ranked 7 out of 8.

Summarizing, here are the final rankings, best to not best — 2008, 2009, 2011, 2005, 2010, 2012, 2003, 2007

A Case of Questions with Elena Sophocleous Toth, WineriesCyprus.com

Elena Sophocleous Toth, mastermind behind the quite useful WineriesCyprus.com, was kind enough to participate in the blog's Case of Questions. I wrote a very short profile of the service a few months ago and reached out to Elena to gauge her interest in participating. Voila the result.

Why wine?

EST: Since our move from Sweden to the island we discovered Cyprus really has world class quality wines. I wanted to learn more...

First wine that really captured your attention? How old were you?

EST: I think when starting to explore Stockholm's many fabulous fine-dining restaurants in my mid-twenties I started to speak a special dialect of French involving bouquet and tannins.

All-time favorite bottle of wine?

EST: Ha. It must be that unlabeled bottle of white my friend received from her work. It was the last most unwanted bottle, as she was late to the party. When I visited her that middle-of-the-week afternoon, she invited me to join her and her toddler daughter for a simple meal. I remember we had fish fingers and we uncorked that mystery bottle to find a year imprinted under the cork: 1975. Had it gone sour? Flush it down the drain? So glad we didn't. It was absolutely fab. (Very special food-wine pairing.)

Favorite wine-producing region? Why?

EST: Currently into local wines. Not sure Cyprus counts as a region though? [Editor's Note: Of course!] France otherwise. No specific region in mind.

Favorite wine-and-food pairing? 

EST: Awesome red with red meat and nice white/rose with seafood/fish/white meat That's how far my food-wine pairing skills stretch. Let me get back [to you] in 10 years.

What is Cyprus missing when it comes to wine?

EST: Recognition locally and worldwide. The “buy local” trend can help increase sales of our great local wines. Cooperation between wineries are truly great initiatives such as for filling international demands as embraced by beautiful Mrs Olivia Haggipavlu @ ETKO.

What do you foresee for Cyprus's wine industry? 

EST: Positive growth!

What do you enjoy most about your work in the wine world?

EST: My wine work consists of enjoying lovely wine with fantastic people. No more.

What is your "Five Year Plan" for your business?

EST: Keeping the service up-to-date, useful and perhaps market it more.

Who is your favorite wine personality? Why?

EST: Marcos Zambartas, the humble star (besides his father) of Zambartas Wineries.

Any embarrassing episodes involving spilled wine, corkscrews, sommeliers or drunken behavior? 

EST: Me? Naaah.

Of course, your all-time favorite island wine?

EST: Thinking of some jewels from Zambartas or Kyperounta.

For more information, you can reach WineriesCyprus.com here.

Three for Monday #2

* Palate Press, the online wine magazine, has a great article penned by Michael Cervin on the rise of Cretan wines. The piece highlights the white variety Vidiano, calling it the island's flagship grape, and supports my opinion that Vilana, the most planted type, makes average wines.

* The Marlborough (New Zealand) Express summarized a July 2013 Decanter article on a tasting of New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs priced under 15 Euros. According to the world's leading wine magazines, "people who drink New Zealand sauvignon blanc are looking for new and exciting styles of the country's flagship wine."

* Some crazy professor in France wants to shut down wine blogs and forbid wine-related tweets. Mishimou, he says it will help reduce alcoholism and drinking among the young. Ridiculous, n'est-ce pas?

Three for Monday #1

I've decided to launch a weekly post ("Three for Monday") that will highlight island wine-related articles that caught my eye during the past week. If you have any interesting pieces to include, please add them to the comments section. Happy reading, happier drinking.

* The article Cyprus wine has been raving about. Jancis Robinson, one of the world's preeminent wine connoisseurs, tasted the 2011 Kyperounda Petritis and loved it.

 * Design and branding are important. Elloinos, one of Greek wine's biggest fans and promoters, highlights Cypriot The Anama Concept's sophisticated collector's bottles. Also, Vouni Panayia Winery's labels got a wonderful makeover courtesy of designer Marios Karystios, and The Dieline, a company dedicated to the packaging design industry, tells us what they love about them.

* If you read the blog and my crazy tweets, you know I have a soft spot for Pinot Noir. Will Lyons, wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal, writes about his favorite New Zealand Pinot Noirs. Make sure to check out the slideshow at the bottom of the article! (Last time I checked, Bottles in Limassol stocks Felton Road.)

Quandaries...

Results for the 2013 Decanter World Wine Awards (DWWA) were released earlier this week. Overall, The Rock's performance was not as solid as in previous years with only one Silver Medal being awarded to Sodap's 2002 Saint Barnabas Commandaria. Beyond that, as usual, Cyprus received its fair share of Commended and Bronze medals.

From this and last year's results, it's pretty clear (to me at least) that only a handful of Cypriot wineries have chosen to send their wines to DWWA. Honestly, I wonder why. Do costs outweigh potential benefits? Do awards have little impact on a wine's reputation/sales in the Cypriot market? Are these contests perceived as being "biased" or not good appraisers of the quality of the wines sampled? Dear readers, if you have any insight into this, we'd appreciate your thoughts.

Anyhow, here's the list of awarded wines:

Silver Medals

2002 Sodap Saint Barnabas Commandaria

Bronze Medals

2010 Aes Ambelis Omiros (Maratheftiko)

2010 Vasilikon Winery Ayios Onoufrios (Red Blend)

2009 Vasilikon Winery Methy (Cabernet Sauvignon)

2012 Prophet Elias Gerolemo Muscat

2012 Sodap Kamantarena Xynisteri

2012 Sodap Stroumbeli Maratheftiko Rose

2010 The Anama Concept Commandaria

Commended Medals

2010 Aes Ambelis Ektor (Shiraz)

2012 Aes Ambelis Xinisteri-Semillon

2011 Makkas Winery Chardonnay

2010 Makkas Winery Merlot

2012 Makkas Winery Rodostafylo Rose

2010 Makkas Winery Syrah

2012 Prophet Elias Gerolemo Riesling

2012 Prophet Elias Gerolemo Maratheftiko Rose

2012 Sodap Kamantarena Rhine-Riesling

2012 Sodap Mountain Vines Semillon

2012 Sodap Mountain Vines Cabernet Sauvignon-Maratheftiko

2012 Sodap Stroumbeli Chardonnay

2009 Sodap Stroumbeli Shiraz

2009 The Anama Concept Commandaria

2009 Vouni Panayia Barba Yiannis Maratheftiko

Will You Marry Me?

A reader once asked me to recommend a fancy restaurant where he could comfortably and confidently get down on one knee before his longtime girlfriend. For a moment, I thought of my own marriage proposal to The Wife, Ph.D., which, depending on who you ask, involved either a stingy long-distance phone call to Cyprus from Ecuador or a scrapbook in Quito's majestic La Compañia church with a string quartet rehearsing on a stage set by the golden altar. "If I ever had to do it again...I mean, renew our vows...and had to pick as venue a restaurant in Nicosia," I told him, "I would choose 1900 Oinou Melathron, the French-inspired bistro tucked away in one of Laiki Geitonia's uncrowded side streets."

Will you marry me?

If what you want is romance, privacy, impeccable service, an imaginative menu and (arguably) Cyprus's best wine list, look no further. This small, intimate restaurant exudes sophistication—hardwood floors, ornate chandeliers, cornflower blue chaises and sofas, long rectangular mirrors, heavy dark drapes framing the windows, a large painting of elegant women seductively staring at the diners. Each table is candlelit and has a champagne bucket on standby. A bar and counter area at the back of the room exhibit large empty bottles of wine and champagne. Upstairs, a few bottles of Chateau Petrus wink at oenophiles from behind the glass cellar wall, and a private dining room awaits distinguished guests.

Aged Cheese Tart with Red Onion Jam

First off, the wine selection shines bright. On our last visit, The Wife, Ph.D., and I drank the 2007 Quinta do Portal Colheita Tinto, a red blend from the Douro in Portugal that bursts with ripe red fruit flavors and runs at around 30 Euros. However, vinous possibilities are endless as the wine list is made up of over six thousands bottles that comprehensively cover both the Old and New World. This includes lauded Bordeaux First Growths, Super Tuscans, Barolos, Burgundy Grand Crus and Napa Valley Cabernets, among dozens of other styles and vintages. Prices range from 20 Euros to "On Request," which means you better be damn sure you want to share a queen-sized bed with her until death does you part because it's going to cost you a kidney in the black market. Goes without saying, though, it isn't a challenge to find a pleasant and affordable wine to match your food of choice with the help of the establishment's resident wine experts.

Chicken Dressed Up in Chorizo

The food too is impressive. Salads, risottos, fresh handmade pastas, a selection of grilled steaks, and seafood, all touched up with a dash of creativity, are on offer. Last time there, we split the cream of aged cheese and crunchy biscuit with red onion jam, a pie of sorts that played the sweet-slash-savory game with the same expertise shown by Little Miss Despot when gnawing on Sophie The Giraffe. Rich and indulgent, the appetizer could have easily been served as a dessert and was the undisputed star of the night. As our main course, The Wife, Ph.D., had the grilled fresh Norwegian salmon with fennel salad, asparagus and orange reduction, while I had a stuffed chicken breast with a creamy chorizo sauce and garlicky potato puree. Both were simple yet well executed, the chorizo lending a nice kick of spice to the chicken and the fennel complementing orange in the only way, well, fennel can. For dessert, we used the same spoon—a romantic gesture on my part—to share the chocolate souffle with mastic ice cream, sesame seed candy and caramelized hazelnuts, dramatically presented as two luscious edible nests.

Nests for Dessert

I never found out from my reader whether he took his unsuspecting girlfriend to 1900 and popped the question. Wherever he did, though, I just hope she said yes and he didn't have to sell any body parts to hirsute, tattooed traffickers for that celebratory bottle of Dom Perignon. Wherever he is, cheers on behalf of the blog.

Whine On The Rock's Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Sparkling Spatulas

Pelendri's Comedy Hour

Tsiakkas Winery might be The Rock's best club for a wine-themed comedy hour. Owner Costas Tsiakkas is one funny dude. Jokes and amusing tidbits on the wine industry, dropped like bras during Victoria's Secret's Annual Sale, marked our two-hour visit to his secluded winery a few bends away from the Pitsilia village of Pelendri. By the end of the session, some of us wished he'd run a wine class and become our garrulous, charismatic sensei.

Wine shop at Tsiakkas Winery

The winery is a large oldish house ensconced between the hills and surrounded by tall trees. The entrance, somewhat inconvenient for those lugging around a sleeping three-month old on her second official winery visit, is around the back, down a short road leading away from the parking lot. A wooden bar and a well-lit and organized wine shop stocked with Tsiakkas' wines and mementos like cooking aprons emblazoned with the winery's logo greet visitors once they make it up a narrow flight of stairs. Mr. Tsiakkas received us in the winery's tasting area—a long wooden table for twelve shielded by a wall that clumsily attempts to spell out the family name with green and clear bottle bottoms—and dragged us back to the ground floor to explore its premises.

The Tsiakkas tour was an excellent complement to the one we had experienced at Zambartas Winery. Instead of focusing on the technical aspects of wine-making, Mr. Tsiakkas told us stories of yore, recounting how our Cypriot forefathers distilled village wines and playing show-and-tell with antique contraptions used to store and transport wine and zivania eons ago. He then went on long oenology-themed rants—how soon should Cypriot wines be consumed (whites within six months of release, rosés less), food and wine pairings (Tsiakkas rosé with lobster pasta), the advantages of vineyards at higher elevations, and the variety of aromas found in wine (petrol in aged German Riesling as an example). His tale on how he chanced upon his amber-toned zivania by "forgetting" a batch of the clear liquor in an oak-barrel was quite comedic. A bit later, he dropped his best joke, sticking the landing like a well-oiled Olympic gymnast: "Cyprus rosés are deep and vibrant in color...unlike those from France, which look like lukewarm water left over from soaking a bright red panty."

Yes, I am funny.

We tasted six wines—two white, one rose, two reds and Commandaria—and his barrel-aged zivania. His rosé, the 2012 Rodinos, emits aromas of cranberries, pomegranate and strawberries, and, while bright, lacks the punch to the jaw of other Cypriot rosés. The 2011 Porfyros blend is medium-bodied, jammy, chewy and straightforward, a pleasant and affordable (about 6 Euros) match to meze and a red that can be slightly chilled for consumption during our scorching summers. The 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon, a gold winner in the 2011 Cyprus Wine Competition, has lovely notes of dark forest fruits, coffee and dark chocolate, but is quite tannic from the get-go and needs time to smooth out. The Commandaria, a bit pricey for local standards at about 25 Euros, showed the sweet wine's world-class potential, while the zivania, which mimicked a cognac or armagnac, was somewhat rough around the edges for my taste. Later that night, we drank the wonderful 2012 Sauvignon Blanc (made from grapes cultivated in high elevations above the town of Agros) with its sun-kissed tropical (passion fruit!) aroma and brimming with citrus flavors on the finish. In my opinion, this is, along with Domaine Vlassides's, the best of its variety on the island.

So, if you need a respite from these dark days sponsored by Destroika®, give Mr. Tsiakkas a call and book a seat for you and your fancy friends to Pelendri's most happening LOL session with quality wine to boot.