Ktima Gerovassiliou vineyard

The final part of our road-trip took place on Thursday 16 June, the day we were to hand the hire car back, so it was, by necessity a brief excursion. Our guidebook, the tourist office and some friends had all recommended a visit to the Ktima Gerovassiliou vineyard, so directly after the HF Net (our turn to control on Thursdays) we jumped in the car and hightailed the 30km southeast, arriving in just time for the 10am tour.

Mount Olympus without clouds and ‘the moon’ sculpture   

The vineyard is in a fabulous location on southwest slopes above the town of Epanomi. On the day we visited the view over the vines and across to Mount Olympus was just perfect. Whilst the view may not affect the growing of the grapes, it certainly adds to the ambiance of the place, where the vineyard’s stone buildings, and the artistic sculptures all add to the beauty of the growing vines themselves.

Ktima Gerovassiliou was set up in 1981 by Vangelis Gerovassiliou, reviving his family farm’s vineyard by planting the almost extinct Greek grape variety, Malagousia, and in the process almost certainly saving it from extinction. We (just the 2 of us, apparently it was too early in the day for Greek visitors) had an excellent tour around the wine processing area and the wine museum by a very knowledgeable member of staff who has worked at the vineyard since it opened. He pointed out the new machinery to trim the growing ends of the shoots (so that the vines would put their energy into the grapes rather than more leaves) and mentioned the important role that EU funding has had in developing the company (part of a discussion on the forthcoming EU Referendum in Britain).

Inside the processing and fermenting area we saw the huge steel vats, each with a capacity of 15,000litres, that have integral cooling and/or heating jackets to keep the white/red wine fermenting at just the right temperature. There are wooden fermenting barrels too – some of the wine is fermented in oak, not just aged in it – but these aren’t mere 225 litre casks, these have temperature control and automated stirring systems etc as well. And then there are the bottling machines: one for bottles with corks and one for screw-top bottles – for the UK market.

Vagelis Gerovassiliou is nothing if not devoted to wine. In what was the production area, in an underground room next to the temperature- and humidity-controlled cellar where the wines age (all stacked in casks and atmospherically lit for visitors to ooh and aah at through a triple glazed window the size of the side of a coach) is the most amazing wine museum. Gerovassiliou has been collecting viticulture, winemaking, bottling and cooperage tools from around the world since 1976.

The museum is incredible in the breadth and depth of items displayed and the layout is beautifully done too. Up until about 10 years ago it was, according to our guide, a rather amateur affair. However, with the aid of academics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloníki (Gerovassiliou’s alma mater) the wine museum had a major re-model and it was re-opened in its current form in 2008, though it hardly looks that old.

The most extraordinary part of the museum is Gerovassiliou’s enormous collection of corkscrews – 2500+ in total – from all over the world, from all era and of (almost) all types. Who wouldn’t enjoy a morning wandering around such a museum? We could have spent much, much longer there.

The collector’s favourites   

And then it was down to the serious business: tasting the wine. One of Gerovassiliou’s daughters was working in the visitors’ area and she talked to us about the 2 wines we tasted – a 2013 Malagousia, famously the variety cultivated from near extinction, and a 2011 red, Avaton, a mix of 3 Greek grape types (Limnio, the oldest known grape variety, Mavroudi and Mavrotragano). Both of these were wines which have unusually been fermented in oak barrels. They have won awards and we also found them to be delicious and so, obviously, we had to buy some to take back to BV! [Ed: I think that we also decided that in our next life we'd like to be vineyard owners].

Mount Olympus   

Hopefully, the wine will travel well but I’m not sure that we’ll give it too much opportunity to do so. That evening it certainly seemed appropriate to open a bottle of the Malagousia and toast our 15^th wedding anniversary as the sun set slowly on a lovely few days.

Ktima Gerovassiliou vineyard, Greece