Today we spent the morning shopping, and then in teh afternoon we got picked up by a private tour company to take us on a wine tour of the island. We stopped at three different wineries sampling their wines. When Santorini had it’s large volcanic eruption 3600 years ago, the island was topped off with ash, and volcanic stones, making it an ideal surface for grapes to grow. The minerals found in this soil and the rocks, give their wines a very crisp taste.
The first winery – Hatzidakis – we stopped at was one of teh oldest family owned wineries on Santorini. We learned that here because of teh strong winds, they keep their vines closer to the ground and they grow more like a bush, with the leaves protecting the grapes. They had a small church on their grounds and underneath it was their cave where they bottle and store all the wines and offer their tastings inside.
The second winery – Santo Winery – was the island’s largest and it’s a co-op with a lot of the smaller grape growers on the island. They were located on the top of a cliff and had a beautiful view of the sunset, unfortunately the wind was so strong knocking down many glasses and forcing us to move inside after the sun set.
Our final location was a – Avantis . They were located closer to the main town of Fira, and we had some tapas served during this tasting. We enjoyed our meal with a lovely young couple from Canada on their honeymoon. We had lovely time, and enjoyed the wine and the company.
