Monemvasia Winery Tsimbidi Monemvasia White Dry 2023
£16.45
The wine
A full, rich and textured wine with lovely freshness and sweet notes of citrus fruit, stone fruit and wild flowers. The Monemvasia grape made dry, in the town that gave both grape and Malvasia their name.
The Monemvasia grape made dry, in the town that gave both the grape and the word Malvasia to the world. For three centuries from the twelfth, sweet wine shipped from this rock was among the most prized in Europe. The dry version is a modern proposition and shows the variety has body and perfume enough to stand alone.
The producer
Monemvasia Winery Tsimbidi
View all Monemvasia Winery Tsimbidi winesThe Tsimbidi family founded this winery in 1997 with one clear purpose: to bring Malvasia back to the town that gave it its name.
The history is remarkable. Monemvasia is a fortified rock off the Laconian coast, and in the Middle Ages it was the shipping point for a sweet wine traded across Europe. The Venetians called the town Malvasia, and the wine took that name with it wherever it went, which is why Malvasia appears today as a grape name from Italy to Madeira to the Canaries. For three centuries from the twelfth it was among the most prized wines in Europe. Then the trade collapsed and the wine disappeared entirely.
What the family revived is Monemvasios Oinos, made from Monemvasia and Kydonitsa grapes sun-dried after picking, fermented and aged for years. Alongside it they make dry whites and reds from the same Laconian varieties. Kydonitsa takes its name from the Greek for quince and had itself dwindled almost to nothing.
