"My father produced 80-100 tons of wine per year until 1974 and it was all sold to the French. We used to call it "mourouka" and they called it Bordeaux. We used to carry the wine on 100-200 animals loaded with four goat sacks each. We took them to Fira coast, where we poured the wine into barrels. Afterwards, we used to wash the sacks with sea water in order to protect the leather".

Absolute trust in the weighting

John Roussos, the winegrower from Mesa Gonia in Santorini, thinks that oenology, history and folklore belong to the same unbreakable unity. He worked in Athens as a mathematician for large companies for several years but he couldn't bear living there. He abandoned the system adopted by impersonal companies' and returned to the anthropocentric system of Santorini, where trust among people reigned.

"There was total trust during weighing. My father used to say to the French salesman: If our weighing varies more than 4-5 kilos, I'll give you all the wine for free. We used to fill up the sacks with a funnel using some wooden measuring cups that held eight kilos each. We drained it so that not even one drop was lost. We had wooden cups and they had scales, so there couldn't be a mistake. There were also the owners of animals who could estimate  weight by experience. If they lifted the basket with the grapes and said 92 kilos, there was no reason to weight it".

Awake by midnight

In Santorini, the morning gathering of the donkey owners who carried the grapes, the wine and the tomatoes, was called "traventzo". They put the merchandise on the animals and then mules and the donkeys walked to the wineries, to the coast or tomato shops by themselves. Merchants knew the animals by their faces, their halters and their bells. Receipts were issued to the correct owner even though the products were carried by the animals alone. You could understand the owner's character and personality just by looking at the animal's appearance.

"Long before dawn the donkey owner came and yelled to my father: Hey, wake up, the sun is already up. My father blamed my mother for not waking him up, but then he looked at his watch and saw that it was only midnight. They used to go to sleep by the dusk and wake up at twelve in the middle of the night".

They used to give nicknames to the animals

John Roussos continues his narration: "200 animals were gathered outside the wineries. Each  owner had six to eight mules and four donkeys. They used to brag amongst each other about who owned the best mule and they loaded them as if they were going to a pageant. You couldn't understand if they were talking about their family or to their animals, as they were given names such as Katina, Georgia, Dina, Psarris, Kokkina. In Santorini everybody has a nickname, people, Saints, animals and farms".

Back in the day, Santorini had 40.000 donkeys and mules whereas today there are 60.000 cars. Last year, among the cars arriving at the agricultural association loaded with grapes, there was also an elderly donkey owner with his five mules. The employee who listed the car plates asked him jokingly for his animals' plate number. "What is he talking about?", wondered the innocent man.

Vineyards on volcanic soil

In Santorini, there are almost 200 wineries, known in the region as canaves. Santorini is the most important oenology "laboratory" and the oldest vineyard of the world. Archaeological findings dated 3,500 years ago prove the ties the island has to winemaking. The volcano that erupted in 1650 A.D. destroyed civilizations, but not the winemaking tradition of Santorini.

The earthquake was a catastrophe for the residents, but their wine saved them. The vineyards have adapted to the volcanic soil, which does not allow phylloxera or other bacteria to multiply, so the grapes that touch the ground until they mature don't spoil. Nowhere else in the world are the vineyards so low and round -they like a wreath.

It is an art to create a round vineyard that keeps the grapes cool and protects them from the wind that whips the island. The vineyards in Santorini are arid, which means they are not irrigated. They get all the water they need from the for the fog that covers the island in the morning.

Cool and dark canavas

"You can drink nykteri* the year it is produced and the next", locals from the village Niborio say, that is why the wine of Santorini is aged in the canavas for at least five years. In the wine presses there are some recesses on the walls where the oil lamps are placed. There is also a small window for the air to come in. Light and air harm the wine, especially  white ones.

The canavas offer their visitors plenty of time and a perfectly decorated place of tasting, where they can taste the wines and exchange opinions about them. People there usually ask: "Would you like some assyrtiko, aidani, athiri? Or a red mantilaria, voudomato, mavrotragano, aetonychi, mavrathiro?"

Even if one cannot understand these melodious words, he still feels complete in some way on hearing them. It seems that all the beautiful words pre-exist inside people's souls and it is a matter of will and time when they're going to hear them and especially in Santorini, when they're going to taste them.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

*A type of dry, white wine from Santorini

MORE PHOTOS

Icons of Saints are being placed on the barrels in order to get a fine wine production.

Comfortable reception place in the canava for testers and visitors.

Everything is sophisticated in the canavas, even the signs.

Vineyards as far as the eye can see.

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