Aori Kotsafali 2022

Kotsafali is a grape variety native to Crete and has rarely been associated with high quality wine production. However, as we have seen in other parts of the world, there are always exceptions. A?ri is jointly run by winemaker Aimilios Andrei and viticulturalist Dimitris Skouras. For Aimilios, years working as a sommelier in the Michelin starred restaurants of Greece constantly exposed him to some of the greatest wines of Europe, while at the same time showing the relative paucity of what was being produced on his home island of Crete. Fast forward to today and the pair are working with old vines of Crete, farmed organically and brought back from the brink. Here they produce a Pinot-esq red with elegance that defies a warm climate (granted, significant elevation in the centre of the island helps greatly). Importer Lachlan Barber nailed it when he described this wine as ?aromatically sitting somewhere between a Nebbiolo-esq nose of lifted red cherry and soft florals and a more Sicilian impression of wild herbs and baked terra-cotta?. finely wrought tannin, slightly sour red cherry, silken texture and a stamp of chalky-minerality.? If you?re looking to expand your vinous horizons, this is the wine for you. ? Ches Cook, FWC.