heteroclito cave & bar a vin

120 121 A time when Greece danced day and night to rhythms that had emerged from its very ancient history, when generous hospitality was a sacred rule, when travellers were welcomed and offered the best to take back to their lands, creating bridges to the world… Is all that enormous value lost forever? Could we make it live on? That was the motive behind the Heteroclito wine gallery in the historic centre of old Athens: a Dionysian shrine to these local wines and many more, sometimes produced in extremely small quantities—wine made to create bridges. [LEMNIO] (sometimes spelled Limnio) The ancient Greek poet Homer praised the delightful wines of the isolated island of Lemnos. This windswept island continues to produce wine from a unique endemic variety of grapevine that we may safely assume is the most ancient wine-making grape surviving to our day. This grape is now also grown on mainland locations with a similar climate in Thrace and Macedonia—that very large part of ancient Macedonia that is still Greek. It is a very late-ripening variety that presents special challenges to both the grower and the wine-maker, and then rewards both with extraordinary wines whose spirit is able to transport us to days of yore. Special thanks to Haridimos Hatzidakis of the Hatzidakis Winery in Santorini, Greece www.hatzidakiswines.gr Dimitris Koumanis is the co-owner of Heteroklito, Athens wine bar www.heteroclito.gr