Emilios Andrei
Emilios, how did you decide to get involved in the winemaking?
While I am coming from a different area of wine, I started making wine during my collaboration with Apostolos Thimiopoulos and Kostis Dalamaras. These two people introduced me to the magic field of winemaking, so I decided to give it a try.
Why did you specifically choose the region of Chania to cultivate?
I would say that I saw some kind of emptiness in my hometown, Chania, despite the presence of important wine producers in the island. Chania has fantastic vineyards that remain unexploited and perhaps their reputation is a little weak in comparison to the most famous prefectures of Sitia and Heraklion. My initial goal was to find old vineyards of Kotsifali variety, but I accidentally came across this particular vineyard of Moschato of Spina variety in Temenia village located in the province of Selino, southwest of Chania. The terroir really amazed me so I decided to get involved with this unique vineyard.
Would you like to tell us a few things about the Plativola vineyard where the Moschato vines are sprawled?
The ungrafted vineyard is located on the western side of the White Mountains of Crete at an altitude of 810 meters and has an eastern exposure. The youngest stump is 100 years old and probably even older. Despite the fact that the vines are that old , they are amazingly productive! The area has a tradition in wine production from the ancient times and I think it is of high importance to save this tradition. There are really fantastic places in the area for someone to cultivate. Someone who is really interested in making unique wines.
Can you tell us a few words about the label?
I am a fan of extremely minimal labels, such as the labels of Claus Preisinger wines from Austria. To tell you the truth, I find Aori’s label a bit too much but it’s ok!! “Aori” in Cretan dialect means “mountain”. Specifically in Eastern Crete when people use “Aori” they refer to the top of the mountain, while in Chania region we usually refer to the slope of the mountain. Aori wine is made from mountainous vineyards, so my intention was to have a label design that highlights that this wine comes straight from the mountains.
You have mentioned at the beginning of our conversation the Kotsifali wine variety, with which you started your research. What can we expect from you in the future?
To me Kotsifali variety is such an important red grape variety. It has a lot of potential and I strongly believe that with the right handling of the vines, we can make very elegant, light-bodied red wines with low alcohol. In the next months, we will come up with something really interesting, a red wine of Kotsifali that will be released in limited quantity. In its vinification we have used wild yeasts and whole bunch fermentation technique that has given us some excellent results!
Thank you so much for your time, we wish you all the best and we are looking forward to taste your next project!
Dalamaras Winery
K.D Kostis Dalamaras for Dalamaras Winery
M.D. stands for Moby Dick or The Whale
M.D. Kostis, how did you decide to get involved with the wine and not with something else?
K.D Το tell you the truth, I never thought about doing anything else. My parents never said to me something like “that’s what you are going to do”, I just liked being involved with the wine, it came so naturally. I went to high school, and even at that time I was sure I wanted to do it, then I went to France and that was it. When I was a child I used to say that I wanted to be an astronaut, a pilot, etc. but I always said that first of all I want to become a viticulturist and even before I said my first words I used to say the word «αμπελουργός» (viticulturist).
M.D. Did you ever regret it?
K.D. No! At the beginning I had hard times dealing with all this paperwork but I never regretted it. I wοuld say that I was more disenchanted because I had to spent time doing other things that I find very boring and I was spending less time with my vines.
M.D. What music do you listen to?
K.D. If you had asked me ten years ago I would have said only rock music and a little bit of metal. When I was younger I was listening also to hard rock music and of course 70’s classics. Now I have a wider range, I listen to rempetika a lot, this music reminds me of the times we were making tsipouro with my family. Jazz and blues also make me feel nice, American music has influenced me a lot!
M.D. Your favorite grape variety apart from Xinomavro?
K.D. Asyrtiko! I know I don’t surprise you! One of my favourite red varieties is Syrah. Especially Syrah from Rhone, I also had the best experiences there. Syrah will always be one of my favourites!
M.D. The best Assyrtiko?
K.D. This is something I haven’t thought for a while so I don’t have a specific wine to choose. I learned this variety from Haridimos Hatzidakis because we travelled a lot together. I learned this variety from him.
M.D. Filtering the wine- yes or no?
K.D. No
M.D. Organic Cultivation?
K.D. Yes
M.D. Biodynamic farming?
K.D. No
M.D. Native yeasts?
K.D.Νο
M.D. Sulfites in wine?
K.D. Yes
M.D. When you use yeasts are they neutral;
Κ.D. Yes, I use only neutral yeasts.
M.D. What is your opinion regarding the isolation of yeasts from a specific vineyard and reproducing them in order to use instead of native or commercial yeasts? Have you ever thought about it?
Κ.D. Look. We don’t have any issues with the onset of our fermentations. This is something that people may need to do when they have difficulties starting a fermentation. What we have observed is that our fermentations with the indigenous yeasts start easily but we have some difficulties in the next stages. The yeasts develop their maximum speed very soon and this results in a quick raise if temperature and then a rapid slow down of their activity. At this point other harmful microorganisms may develop. We have loss of flavours without primary fruit character in the wines and development of off-odours reminiscent of animal-gamey notes. The beautiful aromas of the must are lost. This becomes very obvious in the winery and results in a uniformity of taste. The situation you try to avoid by using commercial yeasts finally happens the other way around. All our vines are all on bedrock, it can be also limestone soil. In rainy vintages the limestone soils of our vines further result in more difficult conditions for the native yeasts. Native yeasts are much more sensitive and when alcohol is produced during the fermentation, alongside the phenolic character of Xinomavro grapes , the creating environment is getting hostile for them. There are so many different parameters that we need to take into account when using native yeasts.
M.D. You are practicing minimal intervention winemaking but you do not hesitate to intervene in order to keep what you need to keep, right?
Κ.D. Yes, because we have seen in practice that we lose a lot more out of punctilio than from adding yeasts.
M.D. What is your favorite book?
Κ.D. I would say “Junkermann” of M.Karagatsis. I enjoyed the unexpected ending of the story. It is a story that moves at a certain pace but in the end what happens is shocking.
M.D. Do you think that the books someone reads, the music someone listens to or the character one has becomes somehow part of the wine?
Κ.D. I certainly believe that. I think that all these elements(what books one reads, what music one listens to, the character of a winery) can indicate more than the things we mentioned before with a “yes” or “no” answer.
M.D. I totally agree with you! Another tricky question, if you have an ugly character can you make great wine?
Κ.D. Yes, it depends the way you mean it though.
M.D. What bothers me the most is that if you are like that but still a very interesting person you can make a very interesting wine but won’t the wine at the end of the day be a little annoying, like a shitty character?
K.D. I do not know about that. But if the man behind the wine is a person I don’t appreciate, it’s hard to change my mind no matter what you say to me, do you get me?
M.D. Do you believe that winemaking is art?
Κ.D. Yes, I definitely feel that winemaking is art. Because I know that I do what I do using my instinct. I express myself, I bring something out of myself, I follow no beaten path.
M.D. Do you consider yourself an artist, a painter.
K.D. Yes.
M.D. You don’t consider yourself a craftsman, you consider yourself an artist.
K.D. Yeah, I might just think you can make wine anyway.
M.D. Yeah, definitely
Κ.D. There are some winemakers who have a very specific way of making their wine every year, like a recipe. They don’t care about the terroir that much.
M.D. Ηow important is Maria (Doulgeridou) for the winery?
K.D. Maria is an integral part of the winery. She is as important as I am. It’s not just what she does in practice, it’s also the inspiration she gives me… She plays a very important role in everything I do.
M.D. Is there a producer in Greece that you think you could learn from?
K.D. I believe there are many producers, but not one in particular. I think everyone has something important to offer even someone you might not have already in mind. One day you can start a conversation with someone and change your mind completely.
M.D. Do you think the experience you had working in Rousillon with Cyril Fhal was a strong one?
K.D. Yes absolutely! Actually it was the whole vibe in Roussillon, it wasn’t just Cyril himself. Of course it was important to work next to him but we used to go all the time when finishing work in Calais, we were cooking there at lunchtime with Tom Loop or others, then we were attending Gauby’s son party in the evening. There we were also meeting other people, from Domaine du Possible, (I have forgotten all the names), various others who had a small cooperative that was used by three small winemakers. The next night, for example, we were visiting them and that’s how the experience and the knowledge came. Every day I was having a conversation with another producer, trying wines, visiting wineries. I could hear them talking, it was an amazing experience. At the end of the day I would go to a small winery in Roussillon which was basically two old houses stuck together, I would sleep on the floor in the attic and that was a luxury experience. Spending two days there was equivalent to a month at wine school.
M.D. Are you planning to change your wines, bring out some new ones?
K.D. No, I generally don’t go crazy with having too many wines, I try to work with the ones that are there and we’ll see what future brings. Some people ask me if we intend to change things like the range of our wines, or the label on them, or if we would like to expand our vineyards–things like that. What I respond is that in general we are not interested in doing some crazy expansion like producing twice as many bottles next year or buying whatever grapes are available etc. because what we like and care about in this profession is the vine. This is major, because I got involved with wine mainly for the vine. If we were just buying grapes to make wine I might have seen it differently but the vine is what moves me.
M.D. For how many acres are you responsible at the moment?
K.D. We own 60 acres of vines and 25 acres that we get from partners.
M.D. They are not few for sure.
K.D. Of course it’s not. And that’s because I really like the vineyard and I like being there. Even if we decide to buy some vines we won’t buy estates on the plain that are easily cultivated. We have in mind parcels in the forest, on a mountain, that are on a high point with a view, etc. The only way I’m going to buy a new vineyard and expand my vineyards is if it’s in a place I like to be every afternoon, you know? The fact that someone just sells a vine with Xinomavro variety doesn’t mean anything to me.
M.D. Do you think Xinomavro is the top Greek red variety or not?
K.D. Yes I do believe so!
M.D. You should have told me something “intriguing”, for example that Liatiko is the top red variety and not Xinomavro just for the shock… Do you think that Naoussa is the top region for Xinomavro or can it be surpassed by Amyntaio or Rapsani;
K.D. Look, I think this is an answer that is given every day. Especially from those from Amyntaio because whenever they are asked anything about their wine and without mentioning Xinomavro they always start talking about Naoussa. They say “Well, compared to Naoussa, we have a better one”. No interview is complete without this line. If you want me to send them to you, we do collect them with Thymiopoulos.
M.D. What makes Naoussa the top vineyard for Xinomavro, the soil, the climate, the clone?
K.D. That’s a good question. I think it’s this proximity to the mountain that makes this “game”, when it’s sunny it has a very warm atmosphere during the day and warm currents come from the plain up and once the sun goes down everything freezes, not exactly freezes, butit changes completely, cold currents are coming down.This alternation I feel is something very important for Xinomavro. It is this very fine point of finding the right fruit between an overripe flabby and the opposite and the second case of an unripe, stiff and dry Xinomavro is more common.And I think Naoussa has power, it has this richness – it’s different. I find it difficult to describe to you how I feel about it and especially in relation to the Xinomavro of Amyntaio.
G.S. What you mean is that Naoussa has more energy, especially in its higher parts, right?
K.D. Yes, exactly.
M.D. I believe it has energy because of its relief, it’s the forest the relief of the place.
K.D. Exactly. Some time ago I went in a conference for Western Macedonia regarding tourism in the area, Amyntaio, Velvedo, etc. and they showed a photo of Maria who is harvesting here in the vineyard and it can be seen from behind that the forested mountain rises and I noticed that not even one person came out to say, ” where is this place? Here in Western Macedonia everything is dry and flat”, you know. It did seem to me so bizzare that the place didn’t make any impression on them.
M.D. Have you read the book Moby Dick?
K.D. No, I haven’t read it, but I’d like to.
M.D. I’ll get it to you as a present, will you read it?
K.D. Yes, I think so.
M.D. There is an awesome translation from Gutenberg publishing. The translator struggled with the book for ten years.
K.D. Was it worth doing it or was it like a personal goal?
M.D. It seems that it was his passion. Moby Dick is considered the king of American literature and a book with many levels like Joyce’s Ulysses.
K.D. Is it as difficult as Ulysses?
M.D. No,I think Moby Dick is easier. That is, you can read it without any previous knowledge.
M.D. What do you think about Natural Wines – does this movement exist for a reason?
K.D. Sure, all this is something good. The truth is that we were set to one extreme, so the situation had to reverse to a state of balance. Of course, I think that all this movement with the natural wines took a bit of an extreme turn. Mainly in France actually. It was in France that I learned about natural wines a long time ago and if you take a look at my blog I have references to wineries and how they work. But then I started seeing some other things. There were people who were bored of making wine so they were making “natural wine”. I’ve met a lot of people like that. In Greece people used it as a shelter when they find no other way to market their products. Many winemakers saw natural wine as a way to make a comeback. There are wineries that make conventional wines but also one or two labels of natural wine. This shows that natural wine has established and moving forward, it has an audience. Certainly the great thing about natural wines is that they attracted a lot of people who were not into wine, they attracted them to wine and made it accessible and popular.
M.D. The wine transformed from something like a sport for the nouveau riche to something interesting for the thirty plus generation. Drinking wine suddenly became cool.
K.D. Yes, and I think this was the beginning of many things in winemaking in general. And all these techniques in winemaking, by using amphorae for example, began to broaden the horizons of winemakers. Now everyone is working on amphorae and large tank sizes and stuff like that. This started mainly from those who had this approach to natural wine and spread everywhere. I think that in general the benefit was great for the wine world in general and for the final consumer.
M.D. I asked you a lot of stuff today!
K.D. That’s totally fine, we wouldn’t get another chance!