First tasting of Australia's first Assyrtiko

Assyrtiko on the Greek Island of Santorini are some of the oldest vines in the world. We tasted Assyrtiko a number of years ago at a Greek Wine tasting event and were very impressed. A while later we were sent a bottle to review from one of those producers. The winery was the Domaine Hatzimichalis winery and we gave the wine a 7 and four stars for price which is a fantastic combination.

This also started our love of this wine with seafood, specifically shrimp scampi with linguine and asparagus tips. Now we seek it out so as to truly enjoy this meal periodically, so when we heard that Jim Barry Wines in Clare Valley South Australia was planting and going to release their own Assyrtiko we were intrigued. On our recent trip back to the wine capitol of the world one of our first stops was Jim Barry Wines. We started our tasting with the always good lineup of Rieslings but it was the Assyrtiko we were really interested in on this occasion. Finally our first taste of the only Assyrtiko grown in Australia. Planted in the Lodge Hill Vineyard by grafting onto 30 Riesling mother vines and producing enough fruit in 2014 for 15 liters of wine. They have a few vines planted and trained into the Santorini traditional basket style (kouloura) with the vast majority on trellis.

Oh what a lovely wine! This wine tastes very much like a lot of the Greek Assytiko's we have had and is a truly wonderful complement to our favorite seafood dish. Congratulations to the Barry family on yet another exceptional wine.

Go visit Jim Barry Wines in Clare Valley and try them for yourself.

Cheers to great wine,