Gaia Wines Notios White 2025
£12.95
The wine
Notios, the Southerner, is a fusion of traditional Greek varieties resulting in a light, fresh and elegant wine. The Moschofilero contributes vibrant floral flavours, the Roditis imparts a smooth citrus zestiness and the Assyrtiko delivers complexity, crisp acidity and a mineral finish.
Notios means the southerner, and the blend brings together three of the Peloponnese's own grapes. Moschofilero contributes the floral perfume and is a pink-skinned variety despite making white wine, Roditis the citrus zest, and Assyrtiko the acidity and mineral backbone. Grown at altitude, which is what keeps it fresh in a hot corner of Greece.
The producer
Gaia Wines
View all Gaia Wines winesGaia was founded in 1994 by Leon Karatsalos and Yiannis Paraskevopoulos, and stands among the handful of estates that dragged Greek wine into the modern era. Paraskevopoulos holds a doctorate in oenology from Bordeaux, and the technical rigour shows throughout the range.
They work from two wineries in the two places that matter most for what they are trying to do: Nemea in the Peloponnese for Agiorgitiko, and Santorini for Assyrtiko. The Santorini vineyards are extraordinary in their own right, ungrafted and pre-phylloxera because the volcanic ash cannot host the louse, and trained into low basket shapes called kouloura that shelter the fruit from the Aegean wind.
The stated aim from the start was to explore the boundaries of the indigenous Greek varieties rather than plant international ones, and the range shows how far that can be pushed: a Retsina made seriously rather than as a joke, Assyrtiko fermented in acacia, in amphora and in stainless steel, and an eight-year-old Vinsanto from sun-dried grapes.
