Greeks start producing wine in 2,500 BC. It is one of the basic elements of the diet along with oil and cereals. Since ancient times, viticulture has been widespread. In Plato’s “Symposium” and in Homer’s “Iliad and Odyssey” we find fine wines, the first wines with names of origin: “Pramnos” wine from Ikaria, “Arusios” from Chios, “Thasios“, “Lesbius“, “Corfiot”, but also from Crete, Santorini, Cyprus and Rhodes.

Since Homer’s age, any house where a foreigner went would host him, providing him with a meal accompanied by wine.
Hospitality, i.e. love for strangers, was part of everyday life with the patron gods Xenios Zeus and Xenia Athena as patrons.
There were also taverns, places where oil, wheat and wine were traded (later ‘inns’).

In antiquity, there were festivals for the god of wine, Dionysus, the ‘Small and Great Dionysia’, where wine-drinking parties were held, during which, without people getting drunk (since wine was offered diluted with water, hence wine), people discussed and philosophised.

In Christian worship, Christ is called the true Vine, the Apostles and the faithful are called vines and grapes, and wine is used in the Eucharist. Saint Wine, therefore, is associated for the Greeks with culture and religion, but also with every celebration.

We host people, we host a meal in their honour, with wine as the main protagonist. In today’s Greece, we find the majority of wineries are open hospitality areas, where events, wine tastings and lectures take place.

And if we are lucky enough to be in the Greek countryside during the grape harvest or the opening of the barrels, we may find impromptu feasts with wine, music and dancing, in which we all spontaneously participate.  

Antigone Karambali

Oenologist