Visiting Artemis Karamolegos winery
What Artemis Karamolegos has achieved in just 17 years is impressive! Opening in 2004, this passion project has developed into not only an excellent quality wine production but also a popular wine tasting bar, restaurant and cooking school. In fact, Artemis is going to be opening a new tasting room later this year due to the high demand.
The wines are renowned for offering great quality across the board and a modern and innovative approach, including Santorini’s first contemporary orange wine made from Assyrtiko and developing their own custom-made cement tanks. Visiting Artemis Karamolegos winery and restaurant is definitely a highlight on Santorini’s wine route, but I also urge you to go to taste the excellent wines and delve into the remarkable single vineyard range.
In this video interview, Natalia Dimitriadi explains the incredible terroir of Santorini from one of the highest-altitude vineyards on the island:
Tasting Artemis Karamolegos wines
Aidani 2019
Several years ago Artemis Karamolegos started making Aidani as a single variety during some experimentations in the winery and it has now become a staple in the portfolio. Sending six months on the lees, the wine offers attractive notes of jasmine and citrus flowers. It has a nice juicy mouthfeel with a slightly tangy note on the finish. Attractive and appetising, and so very easy to drink.
Santorini PDO 2019
This field blend has 10% of Athiri and Aidani with Assyrtiko, coming from old vines with an average age of 80 years old from select parcels around the island. With seven months on the lees, this is quite an austere style of wine with delicate mineral and blossom notes and really refreshing acidity, tangy salinity and good length. They try to keep this back a year or so before release which gives it a bit more mineral complexity.
34 Santorini 2019
34 reflects the number of centuries of uninterrupted viticulture in Santorini, and this wine comes from five villages, the vineyards for this wine are all over 100 years old. Each plot is vinified separately with at least 10 months on the lees before the final blend is put together. The wine offers a lovely nose with some creaminess, flinty minerality, and great purity. It is a long, textural wine with a full body and really bracing minerality (like wet stones) and mouthwatering acidity. A benchmark Assyrtiko.
Pyritis Mega Cuvée 2018
Showing a bit of age, this already has attractive petrol notes and plenty of flinty minerality too with some discreet lemon zest. The Mega Cuvée comes from three vineyards in two villages, which are all over 120 years old, and the wine spends 10 months on the lees and is made with low intervention vinification. There’s a piercing acidity to this wine but with finesse on the finish. Delicious and mouthwatering.
Louroi Platia 2018
This single-parcel wine is a subtle and elegant wine with with notes of lemon zest which can instantly make you think of Riesling! There’s incredible finesse and a long, fine finish with aromas of lavender, fine garden herbs and sea salt. Lovely precision here with an elegant, feminine style. The vines are over 150 years old and the yield will only ever give them 2,000 bottles a year maximum.
Ftelos 2017
This single vineyard wine comes from Fira, overlooking the Caldera, where 150 year old vines on the cliff face receive a strong morning breeze and produce incredibly concentrated grapes. This translates into a grippy wine with quite a chalky nose with flinty minerality and a touch of white peach. Following 24 months on the lees this is incredibly textural with a bold, full body and a long finish.
Papas 2017
The most famous of their single-vineyard line up, the grapes from Papas are very small and concentrated, coming from a 150 year old vineyard in Megalochori. The wine itself spends 22 months on lees, with two months in large oak foudre and a couple yeas in bottle. Papas is a remarkable wine with an intense mineral nose, bracing salinity, and a really long, precise finish. Subtle notes of tea leaves and sea urchin make this a complex, engaging wine.
Nykteri 2018
Tupically ‘Nykteri’ was a house wine, but now it really means the oaked wine in the portfolio, and this one spends 10 months in oak, 6 months in stainless steel, and 16 months on lees. Coming from one of the high altitude vineyards, the wine has a nice creaminess showing some spiced and vanilla notes with a rich mouthfeel, and broad finish. Complex but with a bracing acidity.
Mysterio/19 2018
A skin contact Assyrtiko made from grapes from 150 year old vines, which spend 19 days on the skins (hence the name). This orange wine takes on a lovely amber colour, and on the nose it is perhaps one of the most subtle orange wines I have tasted! Delicate aromas of chamomile, coriander leaf and peach, with wild acidity and grippy tannins. A very entertaining wine to drink and a great food wine.
Mavrotragano 2019
Championing Santorini’s native red, this wine has attractive cherry blossom and floral aromas with notes of fresh cherries and sweet cinnamon spice too. It is partially aged in oak and has grippy tannins with a refreshing acidity and earthy finish. A Nebbiolo equivalent of Santorini!
Vinsanto 2009
A blend of 85% Assyrtiko with 15% Aidini, which is sun-dried for about two weeks before being vinified and aged for 8 years in barrel before bottling. This intensely sweet dessert wine has abundant aromas of coffee, raisin, cherry cola, caramel and dried apricots, with incredible acidity. A powerful wine which requires 5kg of grapes per bottle!
Read our guide to the wines of Santorini
Discover more about Artemis Karamolegos
