What is Assyrtiko? It’s a white grape grown on the volcanic soils of Santorini, and when it’s good, the wine tastes and smells like a summer wind off the sea.
Last night I drank the Hatzidakis Assyrtiko with hot salmon, fresh herbs and Dijon mustard on ciabatta. It isn’t a traditional Greek dish, but it was an excellent match for this wine, as clear as white houses against a blue sky.
If you once had too much cheap retsina on a package holiday, this wine will shake up your preconceptions about Greek wine and let some fresh air in. There’s no reason Santorini shouldn’t be better known, with mineral, fresh wines from one of the best-loved of the Greek islands. The technology is there to make bright white wines, and I hope Hatzidakis will pave the way for more from the island.
Before dinner I tasted it with a handful of vine-ripened tomatoes, which lifted the wine further. My friend suggested that methoxypyrazines, the compounds behind green, herbal notes in wine (here, something like dried herbs), were working together in the tomato and the Assyrtiko. Whatever the science, it was a lovely tasting moment, and the clean taste, with a light breath of thyme, felt as complete as the walk home along a sandy track after an afternoon on the beach.
Archive note: First published in October 2010 and updated in July 2015, a summer when my thoughts were with Greece. Haridimos Hatzidakis, who founded the estate, died in 2017, and his family continues to make the wines.
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