In post nr 2546 of the Agioritikes Mnimes (our fellow blogger Keliotes) shows us a Greek webshop with products from monasteries/Mount Athos.

My special interest lies with the wines and to my surprize the vineyard of Mylopotamos came with a new wine in March 2010, named Epifanis.

Because of the prize (now for € 26,00!) this must be a top-end wine, made from the harvest of 2007.

This is what the Mylopotamos wine-site mywines.gr , who ask x80 19,00 a bottle, says about it:

Epifanis: Local Athonian Wine 
Local from Mt. Athos, Epifanis (Celebrated) Wine is produced from the vines in Mylopotamos, more than fifteen years old, and more specifically from the varieties Limnio, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a deep crimson color. In its bouquet we may discern dried plums, red fruits and spices. With respect to its taste, its body is robust with a supple structure, rich in tannins, in harmonious fusion, a balanced acidity and a prolonged sweet aftertaste.

A wine with a supple surface, promising a lot to the variety’s aficionados, who want to stock in their cellars wines older than ten years. Should you decant it to a carafe before serving, it will open up and offer you its full spectrum of aromas. Enjoy at 16^o-18^o degrees C. The winemaking took place in temperature-controlled wine makers for three weeks. Following malo-lactic fermentation, it was settled and then aged for 24 months in new French oaken barrels.

The new oak barrels in the Mylopotamos wine cellar in 2009

This is what an Italian wine critic Luca Maroni wrote:

Epifanis Mylopotamos Mount Athos 2007 93. Consistency: 32 – Balance: 30 – Integrity: 31

Sensazioni: an enmeshing tint whose richness visually transcends its pigment essence. This is a magnificent wine, of powerful and profound extractive concentration, yet capable of offering itself to the inspiration with an intensity, a fragrance, with one marvellous aroma full of a spicy vigour. Its fleshy marasca is violaceous, vivid, with notes of a limpid, toasted oak and widening nuances of eucalyptus and mint. Greatly round and ripe on the palate: with its thickness that pulpy and creamy embodies its harmonious, glycerinous suasiveness. Oenological transformation technically irreproachable: a great cleanliness, a fruit absolutely inoxidated, of its native nature, spirit still incorrupted and first. The best red wine of Greece ever tasted to date. Chapeau.

The Mylopotamos wine cellar in 2009

It is funny to know that when we visited the wine cellars of Mylopotamos, we had the opportunity to smell the wine, that was still in its barrels, not knowing that Father Epifanios and Margerita were making a new top-end wine. A well kept secret!

The next question is: do we have to wait till October to taste this wine, or is there a possibility to get this wine earlier? It looks like the “Monasteries site” does sell to other countries then Greece…..

Photo thanks to mywines.gr.

Wim, 31/5