Retsina: A 2,000-Year Legacy of Greece’s People’s Wine

Retsina. Credit: Yorick R/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0

Retsina is simply a unique Greek wine, instantly recognizable for its bold, aromatic conifer and resin flavor—a sensation that tends to evoke beardown reactions, with galore either profoundly adoring it oregon uncovering it little appealing. This distinctively flavored vino has a agelong and storied history, stretching backmost implicit 2 millennia, making it 1 of the oldest continuously produced wines successful the world.

Konstantinos Malamatinas, CEO of the historical “Malamatina” winery, which is among the astir celebrated retsina breweries, shared vivid puerility memories of the household business—from riding transportation trucks successful Alexandroupolis successful the precocious 1950s to moving the harvest successful the vineyards of Evia and Boeotia.

The family’s winemaking contented began with his ancestor Efstratios connected the island of Tenedos, cultivating “Tsaousia” grapes for achromatic wine. His son, Konstantinos, expanded the commercialized by sailing the vino to bluish Greek ports aboard his vessel “Mersini.”

In 1895, helium established the family’s archetypal winery successful Alexandroupolis nether the sanction “Tenedos,” wherever the accumulation of the now-iconic retsina began.

“The archetypal bottling of retsina by my begetter (ed. Evangelos), successful 1957, was really a milestone for the product, due to the fact that it enabled bully prime vino to scope cafes and taverns, adjacent successful the smaller villages of Greece and particularly Northern Greece, which until past had been supplied with retsina successful bulk from vino shops.”

According to Konstantinos Malamatinas, retsina faced a diminution starting successful the precocious 1970s, erstwhile rising contention and mishandling—especially successful confederate Greece—led to a nonaccomplishment of accepted consumers.

The concern worsened with the wide merchantability of bulk retsina of questionable prime successful integrative bottles, damaging the estimation of this accepted Greek product. Despite being a protected taste merchandise similar feta, ouzo, and mastic—and made from autochthonal grape varieties specified arsenic Savvatiano and Roditis—retsina has agelong struggled for the designation it deserves.

A tavern successful interwar Greece prepares barrels for retsina. Public Domain

However, Malamatinas notes a promising revival successful caller years, acknowledgment to the efforts of passionate young winemakers who are refining the craft. The vino is gaining renewed appreciation abroad, bolstered by increasing tourism and accrued exports. If this momentum continues and home spot successful retsina is restored, the aboriginal looks agleam for Greece’s astir iconic resin-infused wine.

Retsina was the vino of the people

At the dawn of the 20th century, retsina was genuinely the vino of the people. Tavern owners crossed Athens would caput to Koropi, wherever grape presses produced indispensable but not finished wine. They would bring it back, adhd their ain resin, and trade their ain retsina on-site. It was a section tradition, profoundly rooted successful mundane life.

“Retsina began its travel arsenic the people’s wine,” says Konstantinos Malamatinas. “It was made and enjoyed successful tavernas—humble, handmade, and shared.” In those days, it was often said that a moving man’s humble pleasance was “two souvlaki and 3 retsinas,” Konstantinos Lazarakis, holder of the coveted rubric of Master of Wine, told AMNA.

The country successful a taverna with barrels of retsina successful the background. Public Domain

The origins of retsina hint backmost to ancient Greece, wherever practicality gave commencement to a unsocial spirit tradition. Initially, conifer resin was utilized to seal clay amphorae, keeping aerial retired and preserving the vino during transport. But the resin near its mark—literally—infusing the vino with its distinctive aroma. Over time, winemakers embraced the scent, utilizing resin not conscionable arsenic a sealant but arsenic a preservative and flavoring cause successful the vino itself.

Related: Retsina – The 2,000-Year Old Wine Synonymous with Greek Summer

Resin tin screen faults

However, arsenic centuries passed, retsina’s signature diagnostic became a double-edged sword. While resin helped dilatory oxidation and disguise spoilage, it besides became a shortcut for poor-quality winemaking. “Resin tin screen faults,” explained Lazarakis.

“So lazy producers started relying connected it excessively much—overusing it, utilizing inexpensive resin, oregon watering down the vino entirely. That’s however retsina developed a estimation for being rough, inconsistent, and, astatine times, undrinkable.”

The harm to its representation was made worse by the acquisition of galore overseas tourists, who were served low-grade retsina successful tavernas. Without the accidental to make an appreciation for its unsocial character, galore visitors near Greece associating its nationalist vino with a harsh aftertaste.

“Retsina is similar Roquefort food oregon a movie by Theodoros Angelopoulos,” the vino adept notes. “It demands an acquired taste—subtle astatine first, but rewarding with time. Unfortunately, what galore radical archetypal encountered wasn’t existent retsina. It was conscionable atrocious vino with excessively overmuch resin,” Lazarakis said.

During the interwar period, retsina was considered a portion of manner and the aristocracy. In this twenty-year period, from 1920 to 1940, dozens of songs were written astir this benignant of wine.

Brewing Retsina. Public Domain

Reviving retsina with imaginativeness and craft

In the aboriginal 1980s, Stelios Kechris, 1 of Greece’s archetypal oenologists, returned from studying successful Dijon, France, with a bold vision. At a clip erstwhile retsina was seen arsenic an outdated, low-quality wine, Kechris chose to absorption connected it, inspired not conscionable by sentimental ties—his household had been producing retsina since 1939—but by a heavy respect for accepted products.

“In France, I saw however accepted products were valued, and I realized that retsina, similar galore others, could beryllium elevated,” helium explains.

He didn’t spot retsina arsenic inherently inferior. Rather, helium believed that with modern winemaking techniques, high-quality grapes, and the close resin, retsina could beryllium a existent plus for Greek wine. Today, Kechris produces a scope of innovative retsinas, including Kehribari (with 35 planetary awards), Rosa (a rosé with chaotic strawberry aromas), Afros (the archetypal pet-nat retsina), and Dakry tou Pefkou (a retsina with aging potential).

Kechris describes his ongoing quest to propulsion the boundaries of retsina, emphasizing that prime retsina starts with the content that it’s a unsocial merchandise with chiseled characteristics. “Resin is simply a defining element,” helium says, noting that its look varies based connected factors similar geographical location, altitude, and adjacent the predisposition of the conifer trees. The resin utilized successful his wines is ever Greek, contributing to a affluent diverseness of flavors successful each bottle.