£9.99, Aldi online To say that Assyrtiko is a stay-at-home grape variety is massively to understate it. If you want to drink wine made from Greece’s flagship white variety, you’re almost without exception limited to Greek wine (not that that’s a hardship). The Barry family has produced one in Australia since 2016 (more about it here) , there’s a smattering grown in California and Cyprus and some recently planted in South Africa, but otherwise it’s the Greek islands and mainl

£14.50–£16.25, The Daily Drinker, Maltby & Greek, Strictly Wine Let's start by unpacking the name. This is a dry red wine made from the Liatiko grape by Nikos Douloufakis, the leading light in the Dafnes region, a PDO in the middle of Crete, in the Heraklio prefecture. What's interesting about it? Tell me what isn't. It's quite a pale ruby red, medium-bodied and has distinctly fresh acidity and fine, sandy tannins. That's the basic shape that wraps around one beguiling flavou

£11.99, Waitrose and waitrosecellar.com If you know that Xinomavro translates as 'acid black' you might be surprised to see the declaration 'smooth and fruity' on this label. You might also think that a wine with a description sounding more like a mass-market Merlot is not for you. Hold on! Atma means soul and the winemaker is Apostolos Thymiopoulos, a master of the Xinomavro grape and creator of the modern, approachable style – a style retaining the character of the grape va

No one knows quite how many indigenous grape varieties Greece has, because so many take different names in different regions and have developed different characteristics even when they share the same DNA. A conservative estimate would be about 180, perhaps 200. Either way it’s nothing like as many as there are in Italy, but Greece has a trump card: the white Assyrtiko grape. Archetypal Santorini: church and vineyard. The 30-square mile volcanic island has 600 churches, it hav

This is the sort of piece I normally write at the close of the year, but I have more than enough material and deserving wines to mention already. Who knows how many more I may have by the end of the year? So, the next big thing in wine is? Well, goodness, don’t ask me. If I knew, I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you, I’d be making sure I was in on the action and the rewards. What I can say is that I seem to have had more frontier-breaking wines this year than ever. Admitted