Ivo Tennant’s day job includes writing sports and travel reports for the Times newspaper, but he is also a food and wine lover. He took the time on a recent visit to Cyprus to visit wineries and report from the island’s Wine Festival in Limassol.
Angelos Tsangarides sits in an airy enclave and looks down upon his eponymously named winery which, thankfully, largely escaped fires during the hot Cypriot summer of 2024. In spite of some damage to the landscape, it is a beautiful elevated area of Lemona village, 25 kilometres out of Paphos. He holds a glass of his favourite Maratheftiko which, with justification, he is pushing for prominence. “In ten years time you will see more Cyprus wines all over the world,” he predicts.
That is a general feeling held all over an island that incorporates more than 50 wineries. There has been little rain in Cyprus this year, in winter as well as summer, which has only accelerated a trend towards indigenous grapes. “Less water is needed for these. We have been making wine for so long – Richard the Lionheart took some away with him in the 12th century – that the vines adapt. So we are taking out Chardonnay and Sauvignon grapes from our 30 hectares,” said Tsangarides.
As with some other wines on the island, his medium bodied Maratheftiko 2022, with notes of coffee, chocolate and plums, is improving and ageing well. “The year for drinking will be 2026,” he says. At ten Euros a bottle it represents value for the leading hotels on the island whose sommeliers are looking to steer their eclectic guests away from drinking imported wines.
Wine exports from Cyprus have not risen above four per cent – unchanged from the pre-Covid years – so for the time being Tsangarides’ market remains the island’s hotels, restaurants and supermarkets. “The best professor from whatever university has nothing to teach me,” he says, although not boastfully. Indeed, he won two gold awards in the first year he made wine and has now been the chairman and proprietor of this family firm for 20 years.
The New Cypriots
Tsangarides’ viewpoint resonates with Alissa Tosoudis, head sommelier at The Amathus Hotel in Limassol. She encourages customers to try “as something new” lemony Promara, a hitherto disregarded white grape grown only in Cyprus. It ripens ahead of all other grapes on the island, proving its name, ‘premature’, from English. “We needed something new from Xinisteri, which is the easiest grape to work with and Promara has been a best seller during 2024,” she said.
The island’s altitude results in cool nights and the retention of acidity and aromatics in the grapes. Nonetheless, Tosoudis, an Estonian by birth, cautions that the heat of 2024 has resulted in a low yield with the shortage of grapes likely to lead to price rises next year. “Yet Cyprus wine makers are jumping” is her estimation. “There has been a very big improvement over the past five years and our most expensive wines now can sell for 30 Euros – a very competitive price, if not for countries that have high import taxes.” The island is one of the few places in Europe that has never suffered from phylloxera, resulting in the fortuitous survival of centuries-old vines.
Antonis Athinakis, an oenologist, emphasises the increasing number of Cypriots who go abroad at a young age to further their knowledge of viticulture and vinification. He himself studied in France for two years. As a consequence of enhanced knowledge, it is reckoned that more Cypriot wine will be drunk in England, France and Germany in the future, as well as by visitors to the island. He singles out the pale white Morokanella – rather unfortunately derived from ‘moron’ – but with reassuring aromas of almond and quince.
Tosoudis highlights a future for three wineries, Constantinou, Vlassides and Solia, a newcomer making sparkling wines of increasing quality – Champagne method for the price of Prosecco. Noteworthy are Vlassides’ 2019 Eddial (“I saw the sun”) Brut, a blend of 65 per cent Chardonnay and 35 per cent Sauvignon Blanc; Constantinou’s NV Xinisteri Extra Brut and NV Xinisteri-Shiraz Brut Rosé ; and Solia’s NV Saint Seraphim of Sarov made from Xinisteri. Three further wineries are producing Petillant Naturel (Pet-Nat) wines. Prosecco is the favoured celebratory drink at traditionally large Cypriot weddings, but perhaps not for much longer.
On to The Festival
A few kilometres away from The Amathus, the Limassol Wine Festival was in full swing in early October. It was started by the municipality 63 years ago, primarily for families, and comprises music, food outlets and stands featuring some familiar names on the island. Prominent among these is a Commandaria producer, Revecca Winery. The island has long been known for the splendidly consistent and unctuous sweet wines made in the Troodos Mountains from sundried, indigenous Xinisteri and Mavro grapes.
At Revecca, Nicolas Christocloulides is seeking to craft less sticky, less caramelised wines for drinking with baklava and traditional sweetmeats. He produces 10,000 litres a year, quite enough for the Cypriot market, and there is now interest from Argentina. His colleague Christine Theodosiou does not recognise the oft-stated belief that the wine’s association with taking Communion on the island presents a barrier to non-church goers. A greater historical resonance, they feel, is with King Richard’s “the wine of kings and the king of wines.”
Commandaria is offered in many a Cypriot taverna following the traditional fish or meat meze. At the popular Meze Taverna in Limassol, proprietor Andreas Pampinos Meliniotis also favours Petra, a blend of Maratheftiko, Mataro and the Greek grape Agiorgitiko. The 2023 is muscular and young, resonant of blackcurrants and plums. It was a personal favourite on my visit this autumn, as was the stylish Tsiakkas Rodinos Rosé served at Kofini Tavern in Limassol, where the matriarch presides winningly over a fish dominated menu of octopus, cuttlefish, bream and calamari.
Let Cyprus Flourish
Cyprus, with its proximity to the Middle East and Africa, is still strongly English in terms of history, some customs and property-owning ex-pats. English language is taught in schools and spoken well all over the island, which has an international vibe reflected in the menus of the leading hotels. In addition to meze, there is beef from Australia and salmon from Scotland. There was, thankfully, no trace of conflict. The Russians have long left (as has their bulk buying from the Soviet era) supplanted by Ukrainians, and Lebanon is too far distant. If climate change can be countered, the island and its wines will only flourish.
* Ivo Tennant stayed at The Amathus Hotel in Limassol through the Ministry of Tourism.