The Secret Gorge – Restaurant & Wine Tasting Experience

When dry, Assyrtiko is usually pleasantly taut and its hallmark is an unmatched purity and minerality with a persistent elegant aftertaste. The nose is typically a mixed bag of succulent citrus fruit flavours like lemon, lime, orange and riper yellow fruits, depending on the wine’s terroir.
Assyrtiko is a world-class white wine grape and one of the greatest varieties found in the Mediterranean basin. It originated in the volcanic soils of its native home of Santorini where it is still grown till this day, unaffected by phylloxera since time immemorial. The vine has high resistance to drought, powdery mildew and botrytis. Understandably, Assyrtiko has now spread all over Greece and become one of the most prized native varieties with wide modern appeal, especially as an unconventional terroir-driven wine with laser sharp focus and intensity.

As a single varietal, Kotsifali is typically a suave and potentially intensely aromatic wine with aromas and flavours of red summer fruit like sour cherry, strawberry, plum and even dried figs, fused with hints of wild herbs and sweet spices such as cinnamon and possibly tobacco when made in an ageworthy style. Kotsifali is one of the chief red grape varieties grown in Crete where it has been cultivated at least as early as the 14th century as evidenced by ancient scripts, and contributed to the production of Cretan Malvasia. It is said to be named after the ‘kotsyfi’ or blackbird that likes to peck at the nutritious grapes. Kotsifali gives a ‘typical Mediterranean’ red wine, with a soft colour, intense aromas, relatively high alcohol content, mild tannins and fair acidity. Hence, Kotsifali is regularly blended with many other red grape varieties, either international or indigenous, the main one being Mandilaria.

When vinified as a dry red wine, Xinomavro tastes rich and complex with aromas of red and black fruits, accompanied by characteristic tomato and olive fragrances. With age, it develops flavours of plum, fig, tapenade and spice. The tannins are usually noticeable but rounded and persistent together with fresh acidity in a long aftertaste.
Xinomavro is a uniquely special variety. It gives wines with very distinctive aromas and flavours that are often instantly recognisable even when tasted blind. Recently, two wine styles have emerged: a) the modern version of wines made with deep colour and more concentrated fruity aromas but less aggressive tannins, and b) the more angular style of wines with accentuated aromas of tomato, olive and dried fruit but also high acidity and more aggressive tannins.

The Muscat grape is typically vinified into sweet dessert wine that is very perfumed of rose petals and orange blossom. When still young, it has a rather grape-like flavour which with age becomes more suggestive of peach, melon, apricot, marmalade and candied fruit. The small-berried white Muscat grape is certainly one of the most important varieties of Greece, known since antiquity for its sweet wines which are regarded as some of the finest dessert wines in the world.
Kissed by the bright Greek sun, Moscato or Muscat Blanc turns into expressive wines that are allusive of the unique terroir from which they hail. The five predominant controlled appellation of origin areas producing small-berried White Muscat PDO sweet wines are Samos and Rhodes in the Aegean Sea and Patras, Rio of Patras and Kefalonia in the Ionian Sea.