One of the things my wife and I love most about traveling is learning about the local culture, eating the local cuisine and most definitely drinking the local wine. So naturally we wanted to visit several wineries on Crete. Crete has more than 30 wineries. The majority of them are located in the Heraklion area which makes them the most centrally located wineries on Crete. Peza is in the heart of this Winery district. Instead of renting a car and working out all of the logistics we chose to go with a local wine guide. After doing some research we decided on Vintage Routes Crete. Wine production on Crete dates back to the Minoan civilization. Growing grapes and producing wine was part of the Cretans culture. Going back several decades the majority of wine production was done by local villagers and intended for personal consumption. The production of wine fell into somewhat disarray. There was a lack of technical knowledge along with the unfavorable conservation conditions due to the warm climate of Crete. This ultimately led to the quality of their wines suffering. The tremendous rise in tourism towards the latter part of the 20th century started to turn things around regarding wine production. Many locals began working in the tourism industry which left little time for wine production. The vast majority of tourists were from Europe. The production slowly changed to wines made more to European standards. This caused the main production of wine to be done by more organized wineries. Wines were produced more and more to the expectations of the tourists. These were actually Merlot grapes at the Lyrarakis Winery Plyto, Thrapsatiri and Mandilari. 3 of the 8 local varietals grown at Lyrarakis Some barrels on display The Lyrarakis Logo The wines we tasted Part of the bottling process Domaine Paterianakis Some of the wines we tasted All of the wines we tasted were quite good. Both of these wineries has made a concentrated effort to going back to making wines from the local varietals of grapes. It's taken them a lot of time and effort to come up the higher quality wines from the local varietals, but in my most humble opinion they have succeeded. We enjoyed our tastings at both wineries. From here our guide took us to a one of the very few local restaurants in Peza the Taverna Onisimos. Peza is not really a town frequented by tourists so mostly locals eat there. We were served many plates of local cuisine such as what is pictured below. Everything was quite YUM. This was wonderful day tasting Cretan wines and Cretan delicacies, an experience not to be missed. Doing this on your own is certainly feasible but we found it so more convenient and relaxing to hire a local winery tour company. I highly recommend Vintage Routes Crete.
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AuthorWe love to travel, eat good food, drink good wine and experience new cultures ArchivesCategories |