Wine tasting

Wine tasting around Athens really means two different things depending on what you're after: tastings and wine bars within the city itself, and day or overnight trips out to the regions where the wine is actually made. Nemea, roughly an hour from the capital, and Santorini, a flight or ferry away, are the two names that keep coming up, and between them they cover Greece's most distinctive reds and its most distinctive whites, made from grape varieties most visitors have never encountered before arriving.

The mistake most visitors make is treating Santorini's Assyrtiko as representative of Greek wine generally, when it's closer to a specialism: vines grown low and coiled against volcanic soil and near-constant wind, tasting like nowhere else in the country. Anyone new to Greek wine is better off reading the beginner's guide before booking a single tasting, because knowing the difference between an Assyrtiko, a Moschofilero and a Nemea red changes which experience is actually worth the afternoon rather than a pleasant but forgettable pour. On Santorini specifically, aim for a late-afternoon slot if the booking allows it, since both the light and the crowds work in your favour then, and the same tasting held at midday loses a good part of its appeal.

The Athens guide is the right starting point if your trip doesn't extend to the islands or the Peloponnese and you still want a serious tasting without leaving the city. The Santorini guide is for anyone building an island leg around wine specifically, terroir and sunset views included. The beginner's guide sits underneath both of them, and it's worth reading first if the grape names mean nothing to you yet, since the other two make a lot more sense once a handful of basic terms are familiar rather than guessed at on the spot.

Worth knowing before you commit to anything: a good share of what gets marketed as a wine tour on the islands is a coach stop with a tasting bolted on, over quickly and light on explanation. The better experiences are smaller, less heavily advertised and take a bit more effort to find, which is exactly what the guides here are trying to point you towards instead of the easiest option to book.