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| Aghiorghitiko vine at the end of May at the Koutsoujannis winery. |
The approach to Greek wine is arduous. The first thing that comes to mind is retsina, the resinous wine that shapes most Germans' image of Greek wine. Then, at the Greek around the corner, there are the mass-produced wines of the large wineries, which do not exactly entice one to take a closer look at the subject.
Those who are nevertheless interested in Greek wine first have to overcome a few hurdles. It starts with the label. Not only an unfamiliar language, but primarily the Greek script, make access to the label almost impossible for an average European. Those who try to get to know not only the country and its people, but also the wine in Greece, encounter further obstacles: Street signs, signposts, house numbers and even signs on doors and houses are almost non-existent and if they are, they are of course in Greek script and thus very difficult to identify. If you find name signs in Latin transcription, you quickly come across another problem: the conversion from Greek to Latin script is not unambiguous, i.e. you find the same name in different transcription spellings.