Can Greek wine cope with its newfound pop star status?

A glass of the gloriously blood orange-tangy Theopetra Estate Xinomavro Rosé was the perfect match for the still-zippy music of Jarvis Cocker and Pulp at Glastonbury last month. I found myself developing a loose analogy between Pulp’s career and the fate of Greek wine in the UK. Famously, the band spent years fruitlessly questing for the big time, but when they made their Britpop breakthrough they found they didn’t really know what to do with themselves. Greek wine, likewise, spent years never quite becoming the next big thing, before achieving a breakthrough over the past couple of years. Now, every supermarket has at least a couple of Greek bottles. But the question in both cases remains: when the cult favourite goes mainstream, what happens to the quality?

The grape variety that most major retailers seem to have settled on as their Greek representative is the white assyrtiko. Problem is, too often the wines they’ve stocked are insipid versions of the real thing, the searingly dry, flinty ‘Aegean chablis’ from the volcanic island of Santorini. I can understand why supermarkets might look to less distinctive sources: Santorini assyrtiko is relatively small in production, with prices tending to start in the mid-£20s (try Majestic’s tinglingly mineral example from the island’s excellent co-operative, Santo Wines Santorini Assyrtiko 2022). Far better, if you’re on a budget, to seek out other varieties, such as the moschofilero and roditis used in the Wine Society’s nimble, refreshing, mint, pine and jasmine-scented own-label.

The Wine Society has an impressive Greek range, and another retailer that does Greek wine well is southeast London’s independent Theatre of Wine, which stocks the delicious natural red Ariousos Chiotiko, made from the rare local chiotiko grape on the island of Chios, which exemplifies everything I like about Greek reds, mixing cherry-like acidity and fruit flavours with a whiff of warm wild-herb-scented earth. Finally, we have some all-Greek specialists in the UK, including Maltby & Greek, who have an excellent take on the red grape agiorgitiko in Nikolaou Mirage Organic Agiorgitiko, Nemea 2023 (£15.50), and Kudos Wines, source of Domaine Vakakis Vakakis Epogdoon Barrel, Samos 2017 (£29), an exquisite sticky wine made in traditional fashion from sun-dried grapes on the island of Samos.