Assyrtiko or Asyrtiko is a white

Greek wine Greece is one of the oldest wine- producing regions in the world and among the first wine-producing territories in Europe. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago where wine was produced on a household or communal ...

grape A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters. The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...

indigenous to the island of

Santorini Santorini (, ), officially Thira (, ) or Thera, is a Greek island in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from the mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago formed by the Santorini caldera. It is the southern ...

. Assyrtiko is widely planted in the arid volcanic-ash-rich soil of Santorini and other Aegean islands, such as

Paros Paros (; ; ) is a Greek island in the central Aegean Sea. Part of the Cyclades island group, it lies to the west of Naxos (island), Naxos, from which it is separated by a channel about wide. It lies approximately south-east of Piraeus. The Co ...

. It is also found on other scattered regions of

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

such as

Chalkidiki Chalkidiki (; , alternatively Halkidiki), also known as Chalcidice, is a peninsula and regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. The autonomous Mount Athos reg ...

.J. Robinson (ed) ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'' Third Edition pg 37 Oxford University Press 2006 Assyrtiko is also being grown by the Paicines Ranch Vineyard in the San Benito AVA of California with Margins Wine making the wine, by Jim Barry Wines in

Clare Valley The Clare Valley is a valley located in South Australia about north of Adelaide in the Clare and Gilbert Valleys council area. It is the river valley formed by the Hutt River but is also strongly associated with the roughly parallel Hill Riv ...

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

, at the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Northern California since 2011, and at Kefi Winery in Monroe, North Carolina by a first generation Greek family. The original Assyrtiko cuttings were imported in the USA in 1948 by Harold Olmo, grape breeder at the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

, where they were stored until the abbey of New Clairvaux took interest in the early 2000s. On Santorini, many

old vine Old vine (, ), a common description on wine labels, indicates that a wine is the product of grape vines that are notably old. There is a general belief that older vines, when properly handled, will give a better wine. There is no legal or genera ...

plantations (over 70 years of age) of Assyrtiko exist, of which many are non-grafted. These plantations have shown resistance to

Phylloxera Grape phylloxera is an insect pest of grapevines worldwide, originally native to eastern North America. Grape phylloxera (''Daktulosphaira vitifoliae'' (Fitch 1855) belongs to the family Phylloxeridae, within the order Hemiptera, bugs); orig ...

. As the only European grape vine known to be resistant to wine blight, there is speculation that the actual source of this resistance may arise from the volcanic ash in which the vines grow, and not from the vine itself.Thom Elkjer ''Adventures in Wine: True Stories of Vineyards and Vintages Around the World''. Travelers' Tales, 2002.

Wine style

The

mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2011): Mi ...

profile of the grape bodes well for blending and in recent times it has been blended often with

Sauvignon blanc Sauvignon blanc () is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the city of Bordeaux in France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words ''sauvage'' ("wild") and ''blanc'' ("white") due to its early origins as an ind ...

Sémillon Sémillon () is a golden-skinned grape used to make dry and sweet white wines, mostly in French wine, France and Australian wine, Australia. Its thin skin and susceptibility to Botrytis cinerea, botrytis make it dominate the sweet wine region S ...

and Malagousia. Assyrtiko grapes clusters are large, with transparent yellow-gold skin and juicy flesh. In the volcanic soil of Santorini, there appear to be some unique characteristics that develop in the

grape variety This list of grape varieties includes cultivated grapes, whether used for wine, or eating as a table grape, fresh or dried (raisin, Zante currant, currant, sultana (grape), sultana). For a complete list of all grape species, including those unimp ...

, and therefore in the wine. One of these characteristics is that Assyrtiko does not lose its

acidity An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis acid. The first category of acids are the ...

even if it is very ripe. Throughout Greece, the grape is vinified to make a variety of dry and sweet wines, including

Vinsanto Santorini is a Greek wine region located on the archipelago of Santorini in the southern Cyclades islands of Greece. Wine has been produced there since ancient Greek times (wine), ancient times, but it was during the Middle Ages that the wine o ...

-like musky and syrup-sweet

dessert wine Dessert wines, sometimes called pudding wines in the United Kingdom, are sweet wines typically served with dessert. There is no simple definition of a dessert wine. In the UK, a dessert wine is considered to be any sweet wine drunk with a mea ...

s. In

Retsina Retsina () is a Greek white (or rosé or very rarely red) resinated wine, which has been made for at least 2,000 years. Its unique flavor is said to have originated from the practice of sealing wine vessels, particularly amphorae, with Aleppo ...

, it is often blended with the less-acidic

Savatiano Savatiano (or Savvatiano) is a white Greek wine grape used primarily in the wine Retsina. It is one of Greece's most widely planted grape varieties and is known for its resistance to drought condition. It is mostly planted throughout central Greec ...

grape.J. Robinson ''Vines, Grapes & Wines'' pg 261 Mitchell Beazley 1986

Synonyms

Assyrtiko is also known under the synonyms Arcytico, Assirtico, Assyrtico, Asurtico, and Asyrtiko.Assyrtiko

Vitis International Variety Catalogue The Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) is a database of various species and varieties/cultivars of grapevine, the genus ''Vitis''. VIVC is administered by the Geilweilerhof Institute for Grape Breeding (''Institut für Rebenzüchtung G ...

, accessed 2010-11-23

References

External links

* {{wines Grape varieties of Greece Dessert wine White wine grape varieties Santorini