Wine Pairing With Greek Food Creates Memories

One of our end-of-year tasks is to cook as much food as possible from our large freezer in the garage so it can be defrosted and we can then restock with fresh meat, poultry and seafood for the coming new year.

One cool and gray December day the ground lamb packages in the freezer conjured up images of fragrant lamb koftas served on warm naan bread, lemon-tahini-garlic sauce, yogurt sauce with fresh mint-cilantro-parsely-dill, and a robust Greek salad of crunchy greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, Kalamata olives and artisanal, barrel aged feta cheese with a red wine vinegar and fresh oregano vinaigrette.

By the time the ground lamb was carried into the house from the garage, dinner plans were already in the works. Wine is always a central part of our evening meals and this day was no exception. Sometimes our wine pairings are elaborate, sometimes easy breezy.

Aromatic lamb torpedos with ground cumin and coriander, seared on the outside until nice and crispy. No effort was required for this pairing. None at all. Liatiko. Boom.

Liatiko is an ancient Greek red wine grape grown on the island of Crete. This indigenous grape was historically used to make sun-dried sweet wines, but it's now being used to craft beautiful dry red wines.

Case in point. Domaine Douloufakis Liatiko Dafnios is 100% Liatiko that's organically grown (yes please). It's reminiscent of a cool climate Pinot Noir or a lighter style Nerello Mascalese from Mount Etna in Sicily. That should tell you one thing. This red wine can take a slight chill in the summer (much like cru Beaujolais) and we just love that.

The 2017 vintage received a Wine Enthusiast Magazine Top 100 Wines of the Year 2019, Rank #73 with 91 points but that's not why we have it in the store.

"Aromas of red currants, dark chocolate and black cherry start this delicious red from Crete. Structured and focused on the palate, its flavors of red berry and spices have a refined overall character." (Wine Enthusiast)

We've stocked this wine since the 2016 vintage for good reason. Yes, it's obscure, but it's also delicious and a great value if you know to look for it. It's soft and round with low tannins. You can easily drink it as an aperitif or enjoy it with food. As for pairing it with a fragrant and pungent Greek lamb dish, ooohhhh. It worked a treat.

Right about now you're probably wondering about that salad. Truthfully, no wine pairs really well with salad. The vinegar is a known wine assassin, killing beautiful wines and making them appear sour and unappetizing. Yet, there are wines that fare better than others.

We chose to have both a white and a red wine to accompany our Greek meal. We usually end up preferring one over the other and drinking the one we favored less the next day. The white wine we chose to accompany the salad was also from Domaine Douloufakis, their Vidiano Dafnios.

According to Master of Wine Jancis Robinson,

"Vidiano is a white wine grape variety native to Crete. Although this island is home to the cult of Dionysus and can trace its wine culture back millennia, it is only now experiencing a fine-wine renaissance. For me, Vidiano is its leading variety, well placed to spearhead the reappraisal of wines of the region. Vidiano exhibits much of the versatility of Chardonnay, yielding unoaked and oaked versions, working with and without malolactic conversion, and making solid sparkling wines too."

The Wine Advocate, which was created by famous wine writer Robert Parker, agrees.

"Vidiano on Crete is definitely becoming 'a thing' at this point." Specific to Douloufakis 2018, "This fine bargain is precise and crisp, with a fruity edge that always turns dry. It's not even a little bit fat or sweet. It's very elegant."

So there you have it. Two beautiful, almost seamless bargains which you can serve together at a meal (Greek, or otherwise) or on its own. Unless you have a serious wine geek in your family probably nobody will have ever heard of either of these grapes. Vidiano? Check. Liatiko? Check. New words, new wines. They can both be yours now. That's the beauty of exploring wine with an open mind and heart.

When wine and food harmonize and enhance each other, they lift each other up, showing off their best qualities and becoming so much more than the sum of their parts. The potential to create a fantastic, even joyful experience is maximized and best of all the opportunity to create a warm memory to be cherished in the coming decade can manifest.

Warmest wishes for a healthy, happy, prosperous and peaceful New Year!

* Wine & Spirit Education Trust Certified *

Location 4550 State Highway North Eastham, MA 02651 (Next to the Royal Thai Restaurant in the Town Center Plaza) Tel: 508 255 3660 Fax: 508 255 6736

Winter Hours Mon-Sat: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.   Sunday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.   We're open year round. Closed only on Thanksgiving and Christmas.