My experiences to date have demonstrated that German wine critics are quite demanding in their expectations and their high standards are a test for every wine. The unfamiliarity with Greek grape varieties presented an additional challenge to this venture.

There was no handpicking of wines; I aimed at displaying a representative selection of the overall quality available in Greece. Therefore wine estates participating at this event were left on their own, to choose which wines to send in, for the tasting. Even I found out of their selections on the day of the tasting. It ended up being a large range of Greek wines, covering different wine estates from several regions, including Greek and international grape varieties.

The panel to taste and judge the wines was made up of well-known wine critic Mario Scheuermann, wine journalist Eckhard Supp, and wine consultant Michael Pleitgen. The event took place at Ina Finn’s Villa Verde, whom I would like to extend a very special “thank you” for her tremendous help to make this happen – she provided the logistics and positive spirit that allowed the event to be a success despite some hurdles.

Eckhard Supp and myself arrived early Monday morning and proceeded to sort all the wines by growing regions and growers. A total of 64 different wines from 14 estates were submitted, unfortunately 6 wineries had failed to send any samples, despite all of them having ensured me of their support. This was a disappointment, as these included some very exciting growers who could have easily contributed another 50 different wines.

The following wineries were presented:
Biblia Chora  (Kavala), Dalamara (Naoussa), Gentilini (Cephalonia), Gerovassiliou (Epanomi), Kir-Yianni (Naoussa), Manousakis (Crete), Mercouri (Pyrgos), Palivou (Nemea), Pavlidis (Drama), Sigalas (Santorini), Tselepos (Arcadia), Vatistas (Laconia), Wine Art (Drama), and Zafirakis (Crete).

As can be seen, many wine regions were represented, including important islands, the Peloponnese and the winegrowing regions in the north of the country. The tasting started at noon and lasted for about four hours. I made the following key observations:

There was a variation of quality levels, which was to be expected, as no cherry picking took place.

In general, the Greek grape varieties were favoured over their international counterparts, with the exception of Syrah.

Reds outdid the whites – this is the second time in 10 days that I received this feedback.

Assyrtiko wines from Santorini outclassed all other whites; Malagousia came second.

The surprise of the day was the very high and consistent quality of reds made from Syrah. Mario Scheuermann was quite intrigued by this finding, and sees a lot of potential for Greek winemakers who work with this variety. On the other hand, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot wines were not able to leave such a marked impression.

With respect to cost, there was agreement that some of the more expensive wines were well worth their price tag and at the same time there were some bargains identified amongst wines in the lower price ranges.

It was interesting to me to obtain the views of experts on wines made of grape varieties that they were not familiar with. Overall, it was a great experience to dive into the ‘unknown’, both in terms of the supply and in terms of how it would be received. My experience though with Greek wines so far was overall confirmed: There is great potential out there, and there are some very fine producers indeed, that can stand to be measured with upmarket wines from other countries.

The following links have so far been posted in regards to the event, I will update this section as more content is expected:

http://elloinos.posterous.com/syrah-the-future-for-greek-wineries
http://www.weinakademie-berlin.de/griechenland-tasting-mit-positiven-ueberraschungen (German)
http://weinreporter.posterous.com/griechischer-wein (German)
http://weinreporter.posterous.com/viognier (German)
http://weinreporter.posterous.com/rote-favoriten (German)

I recently spent a week in Frankfurt and Hamburg on business where I met quite a few extremely interesting people. Jan Mangold is the passionate owner of a wine shop in the heart of Frankfurt who started this year to present some of the wines he offers through entertaining videos. Dirk Wuertz is a winemaker, and without any doubt the current star of the web 2.0 wine community in Germany. He has a polarizing personality and is never afraid to voice his opinion. Before he started his own venture, he worked as the winemaker for over 6 years at the acclaimed Robert Weil winery. Uli Kutting is reporting on wines on his blog and is full of interesting ideas. In Hamburg, I met with Hendrik Thoma, who is a very well known Master Sommelier. He his also the host of tvino, an internet based wine show that some describe as the German version of Gary Vaynerchuck’s wine library tv. I was delighted to meet with Tara Q. Thomas, the Senior Editor and wine critic of the Mediterranean at Wine & Spirits Magazine. Tara has an extensive knowledge on Greek wines, and has a super down to earth personality. Mario Scheuermann is a famous wine critic and journalist who embraced web 2.0 from the start. The Internet wine scene is certainly buzzing in Germany. I also went to the Weinlounge which is a fantastic, modern wine shop in Hamburg, and the owners are full with energy. It is fun to shop for wines there.

I also had the chance to present a large selection of Greek wines at a German importer. The importer works jointly with thirty members from all over the country, who all own wine shops. Once a year, they all meet over a 4-day period, taste 600 wines and decide on which wines to import and distribute to the members. I was invited for one day to show wines from Greece. I had a separate table at the company’s warehouse where the event took place. The reaction from the people that tasted the wines was one of disbelieve about the high quality. It amazed me once again how bad the reputation of Greek wines still seems to be in Germany. I heard more than once that there is a now the need to rethink the position on Greek wines – currently, not one of the 30 members has a Greek wine on offer. Literally every taster agreed that the complete line of wines shown was superb and consistent, not a single wine needed to hide.

There still are many deeply rooted prejudices out there when it comes to Greek wines. I had the feeling that in the current economic environment, shop owners are more interested in selling wines from better-known regions, even if this means compromising on the quality. As one gentleman put it, my line-up was certainly of higher quality than many of the other wines offered by the importer. That kind of praise certainly made my day.

The Tschebull Restaurant was chosen as the venue. At midday, I transported the wines to be presented to the Restaurant in order to cool the whites and decant some reds. The setting was impressive, the Tschebull is a very modern and light-flooded place, at a very central location. At 2:30 pm I picked up Christos Kokkalis from the Central Railway Station. He checked into his hotel and we arrived at the Tschebull just after 3:00 pm.