As we continued to explore Greece and its islands, we were looking forward to experiencing the wine made on the island of Santorini since we had read so much about it when researching our trip. Our hotel on the small island was in the tiny town of Imerovigli. The hotel was gorgeous; one of many built on the side of one of the islands’ mountainous peaks which jutted sharply out of the water. All of the hotels seemed to cascade down the side of the mountain and it felt like we were floating right above the Aegean Sea.
Right outside our hotel door was a small family run grocery store with a great selection of local goodies, many of them being wine. So we made the “tough” decision to support the small business and avoid paying the hotel restaurants’ markup, and purchased our wine at the store. We promptly made our way back to our room (only having to go down approximately 950 steps) to take in both the island’s wine and sunset. The wine, a dry white from the Boutari winery, 2004 vintage, wasn’t too bad - but there was nothing outstanding to say about it. It was actually probably the best we had from any Santorini winery, which, unfortunately, isn’t saying too much. I think that, when rating things, sometimes people tend to take into account factors outside the item being reviewed. Either we purchased the wrong bottles of wine (in both stores and restaurants) or the critics we read were taking into account the stunning scenery and beautiful atmosphere along with the wine. Most Santorini wines we had were sub par table wines with an overt sour taste. Anyway, the Boutari wine was 8 euros, so it proved to be a good value if nothing else. Unfortunately, we didn’t come across any other wines that were better (on Santorini, as least) but each night we were treated to a breathtaking sunset that actually did make the wine more palatable!
To catch up to speed on our trip to Greece, check out Part one and Part two.
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