Amidst this stretch of positively Mediterranean weather, we are thrilled to introduce our first producer from Greece, the wonderful Domaine de Kalathas.
The wines of Kalathas possess an energy which will be familiar to anyone who has visited the Cyclades. Exposed to the elements, Tinos is perhaps the most wild and windswept of the group and it was the island’s rugged beauty which led Jérôme Binda to move here with his young family from France over a decade ago.
The Bindas’ vineyards can be found crawling amongst a remote, otherworldly landscape strewn with giant boulders, some three hundred to four hundred metres above the Aegean in the island’s east. The old bush vines of indigenous varieties are up to two hundred years of age and grow on their original roots over weathered, sandy granite soils, which lend the wines a nourishing, mineral quality.
Whilst farming is organic, the Bindas go well beyond that, employing elements of biodynamics and permaculture; they are constantly looking at ways to retain water and nutrients in this incredibly arid climate. In the cellar, the focus is very much on expressing the purity of this remarkable island’s fruit.
Grapes are picked and sorted with great care, trodden by foot and after fermentation the wines are left to age for as long as is needed to garner the clarity and focus which are their hallmark.
Made in tiny quantities, these are wines with a density and length that rival any in the Mediterranean and perhaps most importantly, an intensity which captures the warmth, light and wind of Tinos to great effect.