by Doug Frost MW/MS

A few weeks ago, long time Temecula vintner Phil Bailly noted that while his home region had defeated the scourge of Pierce's Disease, most wine fans seemed wholly ignorant of it. But he noted with some gleeful irony, "we're known throughout the world now."
 
Maybe the Greek wine industry can take some of that equanimity to heart. Last week Stellios Boutaris smiled broadly when he said to me, "Everybody keeps asking about our financial crisis, so at least they're thinking about us." And he's right. Maybe it's my Midwestern optimism but Greece's prevalence in the headlines seems to be opening more doors for Greek wines. Greek wine exports are improving and notable U.S. wine lists and wine stores are helping fuel this growth.
 
Moreover, with the first Celebrate Greek Wine week just a few days away, Greek wine fans could be forgiven a flush of pride in seeing a coordinated march of Greek wines into New York restaurants and stores this June. Stalwarts such as Molyvos have always been there for great Greek wine, but others like Matusya, Loi, Blue Water Grill, GastroBar, Momokawa and Prime are also offering special prominence to Greek wines to Celebrate Greek Wine.
 
But it's not just New York City; and importantly, it's not Greek restaurants that are leading the charge (with ample respect to those like Molyvos, Trata, Kellari, Okeanos, Thalassa, Bahari Estiatorio and others) but dedicated wine professionals in restaurants of every stripe. The great misapprehension of many Greek importers and distributors has been to focus upon Greek restaurants in their sales efforts and, in so doing, have undercut the legitimacy of Greece's recent vinous achievements. If Greek wine is not appropriate to the best cuisines, and is reserved only for Greek food, of what true merit can it be?
 
To this writer, the best Greek wines are not only adequate to the task of improving foods from any other country; they possess characteristics that ought to be seen as uniquely appropriate for the table. Whether white or red, most top Greek wines are comparatively low in alcohol even when fully flavored. Assyrtiko at 12% alcohol is exciting and intense; the reader may trust that Chardonnay at 12% is most often as dull as rocks. Agiorgitiko, Malagousia, Moschofilero and Xinomavro offer this same moderating trait. And all of these grapes enjoy the other remarkable, native Grecian asset: in spite of much warm to hot climate viticulture, the wines retain distinct acidity. Few other grapes and no other wines regions can boast this; after millennia of grape breeding Greek grapes are able to retain such structure in the face of sometimes withering summer sun.
 
Such achievements shouldn't continue unnoticed, though around the U.S. they most often do. Greek vintners answer the call for wines of lighter alcohol and better food sensitivity, but wine writers yawn, sleepy perhaps from another round of 15% plus alcohol Napa bombers. Winemakers around the world are told to eschew the better-known French varieties for more authentic, indigenous varieties. They do so and then they are told that their grape names are unpronounceable.
 
But as the Brits like to say (and they are a stoic breed), this is so much winging. Markets, like people, are slow to change; big deal. High quality Greek wine, like it or not, is a relatively new phenomenon. And it's true that the grapes can be hard to pronounce, even if Grüner Veltliner is too. But like Grooner, a little persistence will win the day. I predict that wine clerks will soon be crooning the glories of Greece's autochthonous white grapes.
 
The red grapes are more challenged than the whites. Agiorgitiko is easy to love: Xinomavro is not. But the American market has been awash in taut, citrusy white wines for years (Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc, anyone?); Assyrtiko and Moschofilero (and many others) offer bracing acidity and so much more – certainly more than Pinot Grigio, but then perhaps we have set the benchmark too low. And while certain large importers seem to have eased off the gas when it comes to promoting Moschofilero; that grape's great moment may be at hand. Muscat has just surpassed Sauvignon Blanc as America's favorite white wine (other than Chardonnay), rising from obscurity to acclaim in only a year or two.
 
Of course, purists will resist, seeking to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Muscat is not Moschofilero, they cry. Yeah, but does that really matter? It smells like it; it tastes rather like it, with the caveat that Moschofilero is always dry and Muscat, at least in its current iteration, is not. But I must argue that Moschofilero's time may be now and the wine industry's Achilles heel is its vituperative insistence on purity, when a drink ought to be a drink and purity ought to be damned in favor of an even better drink. Which Moschofilero is.
 
So here we are at a moment of truth for Greek wines. New York City's new focus upon Greek wine ought to inspire the rest of us to rise up and ask for our own cities to offer us the chance to drink these wines. Too many restaurants have offered a few Greek wines by the bottle and then used the lack of sales to justify their continued disinterest. That's so weak. At the prices Greek wines demand, these wines deserve to be sold by the glass. Offered by the glass, customers can experiment with them, and all of us who are ardent lovers of these wines are convinced that having tasted them, they will choose them again. And again.