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.

Ancient Roman Wine

My wine news feed contained an article on ancient Roman wines. I like anything related to "ancient wine" and have blogged about it in the past:

• The Vix Krater
• 1540 Steinwein Tasting
• 8,000 Year Old Wine

So I needed to follow up on the link which lead me to Roman Wine Tasted 'Spicy', Archaeologists Reveal, an article in Newsweek.¹ The Newsweek article had a link to the original publication in Antiquity, called Making wine in earthenware vessels: a comparative approach to Roman vinification,² authored by Dimitri Van Limbergen and Paulina Komar. The authors noticed the similarities of grape vinification between the current Georgian method of using qvevri and the ancient Roman vessel called the dolia. Dolia were were highly valued items that were made by skilled artisans using specially selected clay mixtures.
The pictures below show examples of dolia fossa or wine cellars found in various locations in Italy.

From there they focused on aspects including their burial in the ground, shape, porosity and the role of skin-contact methods (when the grape skins remain in contact with the juice during winemaking) and flor yeasts (yeast cells that float on the surface of the wine).
Comparison of the Georgian qvevri and the Roman dolia:

• Dolia and qvevri are egg-shaped, porous clay vessels, which means that vinification is oxidative
• Excessive and harmful oxidation is prevented by the coating of vessel interiors with pitch (dolia) or beeswax (qvevri), which penetrate the clay, thus waterproofing and sterilising the vessels
• Both wood pitch and beeswax have excellent waterproofing capabilities, but the vessels remain porous to a certain extent, and this permits a degree of micro-oxygenation
• Burying and sealing the vessels further ensured ideal conditions for making fine oxidative wines

Here is what the authors surmise about ancient Roman winemaking techniques:

• Fermentation in Roman winemaking was spontaneous and entirely dependant on the yeasts present on the grapes
• Grapes were gently tread (foot stomped) and squeezed (without breaking stems and seeds, which imparts unpleasant flavours) and fermentation put in motion immediately to reduce the risk of failure
• Primary fermentation—the first so-called tumultuous phase in which the bulk of the sugars are turned into alcohol—lasted nine to 30 days, during which the dolia were kept open
• As the level of carbon dioxide increased during fermentation, the egg-like shape of the dolia and qvevri created internal convection currents gently stirring up (dead) yeasts, skins and other solids and slowly mixing them with the must, promoting a uniform fermentation and a homogenous must
• The jars were then topped up with more must (to minimise air contact) and sealed with a plastered terracotta disc (operculum) or wooden lid or simply with animal skins
• The practice of burying earthenware vessels ensured a constant temperature inside them, providing a stable environment for the wine to ferment and mature through the changing seasons
• Once sealed, the wine remained in the dolia for five to six months until they were opened at the spring equinox

The picture below is the schematic representation of the fermentation process in dolia/qvevri.²

Finally, the authors summarized that regardless of the color of the grape, the vinification more resembled current red wine vinification where the must was left in contact with the skins. They came to that conclusion based on the various colors of wines that were decribed by Pliny albus (pale white), fulvus (reddish-yellow), sanguineus (bloody-red) and niger (dark, black) as well as early Greek literature μέλας (black), λɛυκός (white), κιρρός (orange-tawny), ξανθός (yellow) and ɛρυθρός (red).

References:
1. Robyn White, Roman Wine Tasted 'Spicy', Archaeologists Reveal, Newsweek, January 22, 2024.
2. Dimitri Van Limbergen and Paulina Komar, Making wine in earthenware vessels: a comparative approach to Roman vinification, Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, 23 January 2024.

A Closer Look at Botrysized Late Harvest Grapes

Winter is the time that I look at some scholarly research articles and currently I am reading one entitled An Overview on Botrytized Wines.¹ I'm interested in learning more about the role of Bptrytis cinerea in the production of a late harvest wine.
Noble rot infection is caused by the fungus Botrytis cinerea. Surprisingly, this same fungus, Botrytis cinerea, with the same genotype and possibly the same strains also causes gray/bunch rot in healthy grapes. The question is, how does Botrytis cinerea accomplish this. The answer is related to specific environmental conditions critical for triggering the different metabolic pathways leading to either noble or gray rot infection.
Conditions promoting gray/bunch rot

• Extended humidity and heavy precipitation promotes bunch rot occurrence
• Intensive ruptures produced by birds, insects, worms, hail, light detachment of the berry from the pedicel or berry’s skin bursting due to heavy rainfalls, leads to bunch rot
• Extreme ruptures make berries very susceptible to gray rot and lead to fungus growth at the exterior part of the berry, where oxidation of sugars leads to gluconic acid accumulation

Conditions promoting noble rot

• The climate conditions three to five weeks after berry ripeness are decisive for the quality of the final product
• For noble rot wine production weather conditions are the key factor responsible for the quality of botrytization; sunny and dry days with humid nights and foggy mornings
• Grapes should reach maturity healthy without skin ruptures to avoid bunch rot
• Micro-fissures in the grape berry skin allows B. cinerea to enter and germinate inside, leading to fungus growth in the interior of berry’s skin where glycerol production in the anaerobic environment is supported
• During noble infection, different transcription factors in the berry lead to different enzymatic production and metabolic paths
• The host (the grape) decreases its defenses and produces a lower number of phytoalexins responsible for the creation of hostile environment for B. cinerea
• The up- or down-regulation of specific grape genes decreases the power of the virulence factors secreted during noble rot colonization by B. cinerea, resulting in a ‘‘milder’’ infection

The above photo shows the progression from healthy to noble rot infected grapes. During the pourri plein stage of infection, B. cinerea starts its development towards the external part of grape skin. The oxidation phenomenon causes the berries to gain a characteristic brown color. At the pourri rôti stage the withered grapes can finally be picked.
We bag our grapes with organza wedding bags to facilitate this process in our vineyard.

References:
1. Kallitsounakis, Georgios, Catarino, Sofia, An Overview on Botrytized Wines REVISÃO: VINHOS BOTRITIZADOS, Ciência e Técnica Vitivinícola, 2020, 35, 76, 10.1051/ctv/20203502076.

1996 Domaine Denis Mortet Gevrey-Chambertin Lavaux St. Jacques Premier Cru

My husband and I had this 1996 Gevrey Chambertin that he brought up from his cellar not too long ago. He made a duck with berry sauce which is his go to meal with Pinot Noir. The wine was drinking perfectly. It's difficult to breakdown a wine that is this smooth and complex. I am of the feeling that it is at the pinnacle of drinkability. I just asked hubby if we had any more of this wine because I think it needs to be drunk sooner rather than later to really appreciate how beautiful it is!
I wanted to learn a bit more about Domaine Denis Mortet so I interrogated the internet. What I found was very sad. Denis Mortet took his own life in 2006 at the age of 51. A little bit of history. Denis' father, Charles Mortet began in 1956 with 1 hectacre of vines. By 1992 when Denis Mortet took over the domaine, it was comprised of 4.5 hectacres vines in the villages of Gevrey-Chambertin, Chambolle-Musigny and Vougeot. The domaine continues in the capable hands of Denis' wife Laurence and their two children Arnaud and Clémence. Today, Laurence, Arnaud and Clémence cultivate one hundred plots of vines on a wine estate that stretches from Daix, across the Dijon plateau, to Vougeot.

The 1996 Gevrey Chambertin that we drank came from the Lauvax St. Jacques premier cru vineyard. The technical sheet for this wine describes the vineyard: this plot of vines faces fully south, on a steep slope. At the top of the slope, the soil is poor and pebbly, with rock at a depth of 25 centimetres. At the bottom of the slope, the soil is also pebbly, but deeper and with more clay.
The vines benefit from a maximum amount of sunshine during the day. Thanks to the proximity of the valley, temperatures at night are very cool. This contrast in temperatures suits Pinot Noir very well.

After reading about the domaine and how Laurence and her children are maintaining it, I asked my husbband if we could purchase a bottle of their more recent Lavaux St. Jacques. I just looked and the 2018 wine is now selling for $279.00 a bottle! I retract my previous comment that we need to drink this wine sooner---we need to cherish this wine and drink it with appreciation!
References:
1. Adam Lechmere, Decanter, Denis Mortet, February 3, 2006.
2. Domaine Denis Mortet.