Thimiopoulos, Trilofo

On the 4th March I had an appointment to meet Apostolis Thimiopoulos at his family's estate in Trilofo, about 15km south of Naoussa. I arrived a bit early and was greeted by his father, who took me straight into the family's house where his wife prepared home made food. While we dipped our forks into at least 6 or 8 different dishes, Apostolis' father told me a lot about their work in the vineyards. I learned many new quite technical Greek winemaking terms :) He also went to the cellar and opened a magnum of 2000, from a time where the wine received no oak treatment at all. The wine was still very fresh and showed a lovely pure fruit aroma. I admired it. The winery produces only one label: Ghi ke Uranos, 100% Xinomavro. Ever since Apostolis, who studied oinology in Athens, arrived at the winery to help his father, this wine has been an instant success story. It is a true terroir wine and is compellingly elegant in style. There is next to no interfearence in the winery, all the work takes place in the vineyards. When Apostolis arrived at the winery, he showed me a detailed map of the vineyards included in the Naoussa area. The map showed the different soil structures, and the Thimiopoulos' vineyards showed a remarkable variety of stony and chalky soils. He took me for a walk through the vineyards, and showed me the different soils - amazingly, the soils in the vineyards are structured like a mosaic - blue here, red there, white chalk two rows down - just incredible. Apostolis knows every spot in the vineyards, and he is a big believer in terroir. He is already experimenting with single vineyard samples. He is also a true believer when it comes to grape varieties. "Xinomavro is the grape of the Naoussa area, here exists the terroir for this grape. Why on earth has it become such a fashion to plant international grape varieties? We will always just work with Xinomavro in our vineyards, because this is why we can create great wines, because the terroir can work magic here." His father fully supports this view. The pair is nearly obsessed with quality - and the results show. The first Ghi ke Uranos appeared with the 2004 label, it swiftly made headlines. I was fortunate enough to taste the 2005, 2006, 2007 and barrel 2008 at the estate, the quality is there in every vintage, but the 2008 seems to be yet another step up. Apostolis even was eager to show me different cask samples of the 2008, one that was just racked, one that had just spent some days with the skins... The wines are extremly elegant - no over-ripeness, no tricks, just simply purity. Today I experienced first hand that great terroir exists in Greece.