2020 Gaia Clay Orange Assyrtiko Santorini

Mad wine - Assyrtiko (own-rooted, rather than on American rootstock, unaffected by Phylloxera - the soil is too poor), fermented on the skins with indigenous yeast, aged on the lees in clay spheres for four years. A modern recreation of the traditional amphorae in which wine has been aged and transported since Dionysus showed the Greeks how fermentation worked... golden in colour, with ripe stonefruit aromas, quite honeyed. The palate is dense and rich, very slightly grippy but soft and mellow, savoury and powerful. A gastronomic, complex wine, wonderfully unique. (JH 02/08/2024)