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A story about a Vinsanto, by Yannis Koulelis!
1989 was an important milestone year in my life. Second harvest in Santorini at the Boutari Winery, another life, another world, first attempt to make Vinsanto from sun-dried grapes. That year I also met the winemaker Yannis Argyros (father of Matthew). We became friends and collaborators. Matthew was a child then... Yannis was a great master of sweet wines. His advice was invaluable. He would invite me over and we would taste from his large barrels of sweet wines, which he lovingly watched over and aged in his warehouses in the Episkopi Gonia.
Years after that unforgettable time, the incredible chain of life's coincidences brought this legendary wine to my office in Dynamiki SA for tasting. The same wine that years before I was tasting in a dank warehouse with its creator!
Yannis Argyros, who is no longer with us, bottled the 1989 Vinsanto in 2002 (it had been in barrels for 13 years!!).
As I poured the wine into the tasting glass, I experienced an overwhelming "Déjà vu" and all at once, scenes of my life unfolded vividly before me, that incredible year of the '89 harvest... the harvest's meadow, the conversations with the winegrowers, the sails laid with the bunches of Assyrtiko to be sunk...
I remembered dear friends, precious colleagues.... I took the pencil and wrote four words.
Excellent!!!! Complex, flawless, unique!!!
Properly maintained, it has aged beautifully, with many more years of life ahead of it. It stands out next to the great Tokay and Sauternes. It is a tremendously revealing experience to taste and drink aged wines. Because these wines, in addition to special aromas and flavors, lock in unforgettable memories. They become occasions for remembering profound events and personal relationships of that bygone era, dreams, twists, turns, quests, passions... That is why they have a special value that has no price in money but a price in substance.
I write and drink to the memory of Yannis Argyros and the magical team of the Boutaris Winery in Santorini in '89.
This Vinsanto comes from sun-dried white grapes of the Assyrtiko and Aidani varieties. It was vinified in Santorini in 1989 and aged in large barrels until 2003, when it was bottled. A complex whole, evolved spectacularly in the bottle, with acidity that balances the sweetness, with great endurance for the years that have passed and for those to come! Dried fruit and herbs, coffee beans, honeycomb, spoon sweets, emerge on the perfectly expressive nose and follow through to the extremely full body, until the endless finish.
I highly recommend you to buy and taste a 1989 Vinsanto Argyros and perhaps, in doing so, travel back in time, to times unique, unrepeatable, to values deep and essential.
It was a one-way street to acquire the last bottles of this unique Santorini sweet wine in Dynamiki and we are very happy to offer them to the Greek market.
Yannis Koulelis
