Xynisteri – The Wine surprise of Cyprus

Today I had a short 20 minute drive to Lemona to visit my good friend Angelos Tsaggarides in his winery. The heat was unbearable in Pafos by the sea so I thought I drive to the hills and by the way see how the harvesting goes.

When I arrived at the winery Angelos as usual opened a bottle of wine to “celebrate” the occasion. This time he opened a bottle of white wine, last years white he said, but still very alive. It was the first time I was going to try his white wine. A crystal clear white wine that has almost no colour, at the beginning I though , oh well , another tasteless white, (being myself a lover of red), but I must admit I was very surprised of its fruity smell and even more surprised of its smoothness. Light, refreshing and full of “appleness” Tsagarides Xynistery was a very pleasant surprise.

Xynistery is the most local variety of Cyprus “cepage”, cultivated in Cyprus since ever Xynisteri is a component of Commandaria. Alone always had a bad reputiuon as a very acid variety, not stable and a headaque generator. Its juice was used also to produce sweets such as Palouze and Sioutziouko, Xynistery earned its but reputation for its acididy, Xino in Greek means acid.

But today the young winemakers like Angleos understood the value of this local variety and took measures to create a wonderful white wine that we can be proud of.

This is defiantly the most live example of turning around a bad reputation. Xynistery white wines are now taken seriously in mouths of wine experts such as Dr. George Soleas who lives and works in Toronto Canada and during the wine tasting just before the opening of the wine festival in Lemesos in Cyprus he has literally said that Xynisteri is an example to follow for other local varieties worldwide.