Silva Daskalaki
Grifos White
If last week's Greek white was an old friend that grabbed my senses years ago, this week we feature a wine that, as I stated above, is new to me...but on the first taste I was totally enthralled. Here was a white that looked, smelled, and tasted like something important...does that make sense? You just know instantly you're a luckier and more contented person because you got to experience it. Like a beautiful Maine morning. A long anticipated kiss.
Yeah. It's that good.
So, here's the gist. Crete. Large island in the middle of the Mediterranean climate zone, between the North Cretan Sea and the Libyan Sea. Greek, but remember what does that mean when you've got the kind of geography (soooo many islands and the mainland, etc) and history (a feeeewwww people have lived and been conquered and then lived and then conquered etc) the idea of being anything except either a local or not (sound like somewhere we know?) is laughable.
The winery sits not too far from the Northern coast, in the region clustered around Heraklion, the main urban center. The vines are planted in two main areas, one nearer the sea, and one around the town of Siva where the winery is housed. The family has been "doing this" for 100 years, but only coalesced into a winery in 1998. Siva, by the way, is the local name for Dionysus, a wine merchants favorite deity, but thought somehow to connect to Shiva, the Hindi god. Dunno. All I can tell you is what they tell me.
The grape in question is Vidiano, long tied to the island's viticulture. It is fermented in 300 liter cement casks on the lees (the skins, etc) with indigenous yeasts, then separated from the bits and aged further in oak for three months. The color is like gold that needs a burnishing. The first sip is almost too assertive, and you're caught off guard. Like that first kiss. But then you smell the perfume, you look again into the glass, and perhaps the first kiss turns into many more. We enjoyed it with a nice pork Saltimbocca and arugula salad, but I'd imagine this could hit any number of savory dishes really well, from classic Med fare like fish and octopus, to roast fowl or pork, to oysters...oh, man, a few good oysters and this? Hmmm....