Description
Kir-Yianni was founded in 1997 by Yiannis Boutaris, when he split from the Boutari wine group founded by his grandfather, and set out on his own to vinify the first vintage of a project he had been laying the groundwork for during the decades prior.
The project began nearly thirty years prior, when Yiannis planted 40ha of xinomavro vines in the Naoussa PDO, in the NW of Greece, where the main winery is based.
He then planted 20 more hectares in 1985, also in the northwest of Greece, in the highlands to the west of Mt. Vermion, in the area of Amyndeon. Just one year before his first vintage under the Kir-Yianni name, he acquired an old winery nearby nicknamed “Paranga” -the “Shack”, which gave him two laser-focused facilities for each varietal/region he was working with.
The estate is now managed by his son, Stellios, and has grown to become one of Greece’s largest wineries, with no shortage of vineyard projects.
For this, their assyrtiko which they’ve dubbed “The North”, they use fruit from select high altitude parcels at around 600 – 700 metres. It’s a proper, bonafide cool-climate vineyard region, which can be funny to think about being in Greece; nonetheless, the region gets snow in winter, and has fairly mild summers.
All of which lends a racy mineral edge to the wine, and no shortage of citrus/blossom/stone fruit aromatics so typical of the varietal (especially when grown on poorer sandy soils). It spends four months on fine lees before bottling, just to help round off the texture a smidge, but not start getting in the way.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.