K&L Wine Merchants: Spotlight on Greece

• SHOP THE 2025 SIGALAS: The Wine That Launched a Thousand Ships


• ECONOMOU: Maybe More Myth Than Man


• ASSYRTIKO UNBOUND: On the Trail of Greece's Greatest Variety


• XINOMAVRO: Greece's Answer to Nebbiolo


• BEYOND ASSYRTIKO: Explore Greece off the Beaten Path

Like Helen of Troy, Sigalas is the wine that launched a thousand ships — mostly ships headed to Santorini. Sigalas remains one of the benchmark producers on the island, and the quality has always been superb. The 2025 vintage saw devastatingly low yields, but we were fortunate to secure a healthy allocation thanks to our long-standing relationship with the importer.

I recently featured Sigalas at a staff training, and the response was overwhelmingly positive. It's always been a favorite, but the 2025 showed impressively well. One note a colleague shared really resonated with me — the wine's texture was unlike anything he'd tasted before, with nothing quite to reference it against. I kept going back to it myself, and it caught my eye — or should I say palate — too. It has a glycerol texture that's somehow sharp and round all at once. Hard to put into words, but the sensation was incredible - like a distillation of the terroir.

This is a young Sigalas that will only benefit from time in bottle, but right now that gorgeous density is accompanied by flavors of roasted peach, watermelon rind, wet rock, watercress, apple jelly. So much happening already, and so much more still to come from this classic.

— Keith Mabry, K&L Greek Wine Buyer

Santorini is the southernmost island in the Cyclades archipelago

Perhaps in honor of Christopher Nolan's new Odyssey film, but mostly because there are few wines as singular as those of Yiannis Economou, these are wines absolutely worth the journey. It's fitting that I often describe Yiannis as more myth than man. Elusive and enigmatic, he began his career in Germany and Barolo (Scavino and Ceretto, to be precise) before landing at Château Margaux, where he worked on the winemaking team. In the mid-90s he returned to his home region of Crete to take over the family vineyards, working with the island's classic varieties — Liatiko, Thrapsathiri, Mandilari, and Vilana. The vines are old, own-rooted, and hand-harvested. Never one for convention, he's also played for years with Assyrtiko, and even Cabernet and Merlot (a nod to his Margaux days, perhaps). Read more Read more On the Trail.

Yiannis Economou, the trail-blazing visionary behind Domaine Economou

Assyrtiko, though native to Santorini and long associated with the islands of the Aegean, has migrated to the mainland and taken quite a hold. The grape has some incredible properties that make it ideal for experimentation. For one, it's remarkably hearty and drought-resistant — a great candidate when considering varieties to plant in non-native regions. Second, from a flavor perspective, it's wonderfully adaptable, reflecting the character of whatever soil it's grown in. Read more Read more On the Trail.

From Hatzidakis Vineyards, a classic kouloura basket-trained vine

If you've never tasted Xinomavro, the easiest shorthand is to call it Greece's answer to Nebbiolo — and there's real truth to that comparison. Break down the grape's name and you'll find a clue as to why: xino means "acid," and mavro means "black," a fitting description for a wine defined by high acidity, dark color, and firm, structured tannin. Like Nebbiolo, it's capable of aging gracefully for at least a decade (presumably longer) and rewarding some patience in the cellar. But lean on that comparison too heavily, and you'll miss what makes Xinomavro so genuinely its own. Read more On the Trail.

Alpha Estate, located in northwest part of Greece in Amyndeon

Assyrtiko has rightly earned its place as the ambassador of Greek white wine, the grape most people reach for first when they start exploring what the country has to offer. But Greece's story doesn't end there — it's a nation with dozens of indigenous varieties, many found nowhere else on earth, each one shaped by the wildly different terroirs it grows in, from volcanic islands to limestone mountains to high-altitude mainland plateaus. Read more On the Trail.

Located in the heart of Moscofilero, Domaine Skouras is family owned and operated

Return to Top