Limniona - A Greek Grape

The theme for our 2023 harvest party was Greek food so my husband procured some Greek wines to pair with the food. There was one variety that I had not heard of called Limniona so I thought I would look into this Greek grape today.
He purchased two wines made from Limniona from Domaine Zafeirakis:

The tome Wine Grapes¹, credits Christos Zafeirakis in Tyrnavos, for saving this grape from extinction. The birthplace of the Limniona grape is in Thessaly located in Central Greece. At the beginning of the 90s, the Greek Wine Institute promoted plantings of this variety in Thessaly since it was an indigenous grape.
However, it wasn't until 2007, when Christos Zafeirakis produced and marketed a single-varietal Limniona, that the Limniona varietal attracted the attention of other producers to also focus on that variety.
The Zafeirakis family has been practicing viticulture for more than 100 years and Christos Zafeirakis is the 4th generation winemaker, considered to be one of the young, pioneering winemakers in Greece.
Thessaly is the region where Limniona is mainly found, but plantings are concentrated in the west in Messenicola and towards the north, in Meteora, Tyrnavos, and Rapsani. These areas are all located in the rain shadow of the Pindos Mountain range located directly to the west. The region is characterized by their soils, which are sandy and rocky, with little water and nutrient retention.
Limniona is a vigorous, late-ripening red variety with little need for water. Controlling the vine vigor is accomplished through shoot trimming, controlled irrigation and fertilisation, and leaf removal.
Limonia is both elegant and powerful. Ιntensely colored due to its high anthocyanin content, it has aromas of strawberry and raspberry, herbal and floral notes (roses or violets) and sweet spices with a peppery twist. The silky rather than velvety tannins and its lively perfumed character are characteristic of this variety.²
This research into Limniona calls for another taste of Domaine Zafeirakis Limniona wines, a rose and the red wine, παρακαλω!
References:
1. J. Robinson, J. Harding and J. Vouillamoz, Wine Grapes - A complete guide to 1,368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, pg 348, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14446-2.
2. Yiannis Karakasis MW and Evmorfia Kostaki DipWSET, Limniona.
3. Domaine Zafeirakis.