2015 Domaine Tselepos Classic Mantinia Moschofilero 750 ml

The Wandering Winemaker Returns Home

Yiannis Tselepos was born in Cyprus, an island that is divided in half between Greece and Turkey, inextricably linked to the culture and history of wine over the past 5,000+ years.  If you pick up ancient Babylonian texts or the Jewish Talmud, you’ll read about how Cypriot wine was used to celebrate religious rituals. One cannot talk about the culture of wine or the industry of winemaking without weaving Cyprus or mainland Greece into the story.

Yiannis Tselepos was well aware of that history.  It was his pride and birthright. His father was a winemaker who sold wine in bulk from the island; Yiannis was taken under his father’s wing from a young age and learned every step of the process.  As Yiannis came of age in the late ‘70s, he was disheartened by how Greek wines were perceived at home and abroad. At home, quality wasn’t a priority — whatever was cheapest got sold. The international market wasn’t much better. The only Greek wine people knew was Retsina, a white wine flavored with pine resin, commonly served in a tumbler with ice cubes.

This perception of Greek wines caused Yiannis many a sleepless night. How could a culture that was responsible for the proliferation and development of winemaking worldwide have fallen into such a rut? Yiannis decided that he wasn’t going to wait for someone to answer that question. He made it his mission, along with a handful of other growers, to change the perception of Greek wines. His first move was sailing to Burgundy to learn all he could.

Yiannis had always dreamed about the wines of Ramonet and Romanée-Conti. He moved there because he wanted to go to wine school at the University of Dijon and work with a few of the growers to learn their ways. He spent a little more than two years in Burgundy and learned a lifetime of information regarding hygienic cellar work and modern winemaking.

At the end of the scorching ‘82 harvest, Yiannis was ready to head back to Cyprus and make his mark on the wine world. He purchased his ticket to fly back to Athens out of the CDG airport, but fate had another plan.

On his train ride to the airport, he bumped into a fellow Greek wine enthusiast.  He was on his way to a wine fair in Paris and the gentleman invited Yiannis to join him. The enthusiast was a wealthy landowner in the Peloponnese and was looking for a winemaker to help develop the indigenous varieties that came from the area of Mantinia, namely Moschofilero.  Yiannis took a quick shine to him and decided to try it out before going back to Cyprus.  As it turned out, he never went back.

Yiannis felt that the indigenous Moschofilero had enormous potential that hadn’t yet been explored. Others growers in the region were focused on international varieties like Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, as they were easier to market worldwide, but Yiannis was convinced of the importance of bringing the indigenous varieties into the spotlight.  He knew that if Greece was ever going to differentiate itself from the other growing areas of the world and return to its once-formidable standing in the wine universe, it would all have to be done with native grapes.

Moscho means “aromatic” in Greek, and there is nothing so distinct as a Moschofilero grown in Mantinia, the finest region in Peloponnese for the grape. The vineyards are at an altitude of over 2,000 feet and the high elevation allows the grapes to ripen slowly.  This allows the aromatic compounds in the skins to gently attain maturity and develop layer after layer of nuance and flavor.

Today, Yiannis Tselepos is known as the greatest producer of Moschofilero in Greece. He left his country 30 years prior on a mission to bring pride back to the wines and winemakers of his home country and return Greece to a seat at the table of greatest wines in the world.  We would say mission accomplished, but don’t take our word for it. See for yourself. $18/bottle today ONLY on WineAccess.