Commandaria

I am writing this story in my hometown of Basel, which is currently, in mid-May, completely in the grip of the Eurovision Song Contest. The highlight is traditionally the scoring, where the bias of the jury members reaches its climax when Cyprus and Greece are allowed to hand out their points. It is almost certain you will hear the Greek chairperson say with a raspy, smoky voice “Chypre: douze points”. And vice versa. Despite this, Cyprus has not yet been able to make much of an impact as a Eurovision country – a second place in 2018 was the highest ranking ever. As a wine country, it probably has better cards. The land of Aphrodite does indeed have a long history of wine and their sweet Commandaria has made the hearts of kings and crusaders beat faster. Nowadays, a number of producers are certainly worth those twelve points, not only from Greece. During a press trip organised by the Cypriot Ministry of Tourism and the Circle of Wine Writers, I visited four producers.

Cyprus likes to promote itself as one of the oldest wine countries in the world. Since we know that the domestication of the vine probably took place in two locations, not only in Georgia, but also in Israel (Economist, March 2023), that claim doesn’t seem unlikely. Tel Aviv is only a 40-minute flight from Larnaca. Even six millennia ago, that distance must have been relatively easy to bridge. Based on archaeological excavations, we can safely assume that wine has been made in Cyprus ever since.

Much about the history of Cypriot wine is anecdotal, but Commandaria, the sweet wine for which the island is best known, is said to have been served at the wedding of King-Crusader Richard the Lionheart when he married his Berengaria of Navarre in Limassol in 1191. The name Commandaria probably comes from the largest of the three estates, La Grande Commanderie, that the Templars were able to keep after they had to give up the island.

Developments in the making of Commandaria
Commandaria is made from two indigenous grape varieties, mavro (blue) and xynisteri (white). (Interesting fact: Cyprus is phylloxera-free, so all vines are standing on their own roots.) Any desired ratio is allowed, including 100 percent xynisteri, but most producers opt for a good dose of mavro because this variety provides the much-needed acidity to balance the wine’s sweetness. Before being crushed and fermented, the very ripe grapes are laid out to dry in the sun.

When Cyprus came under British rule in 1878, two important changes occurred in the making of Commandaria. Fortification allowed for easier transportation of the wines. Up to this day, most of the production is still fortified up to 15 to 20 percent abv. The Brits also introduced oak barrels, while the Cypriots traditionally made their Commandaria in clay pots, locally known as pithari.

Since 1990, Commandaria is protected by a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) and can be made in only fourteen villages in the sometimes breathtakingly beautiful Troodos Mountains. The largest producers, such as KEO and LOEL (pronounced: lo-el) still fortify the wine, but the smaller wineries in particular prefer the old way of producing, unfortified. The appellation allows both styles.

Commandaria must mature in oak barrels for at least two years, but longer is allowed too. LOEL, for example, has a forty-year-old wine waiting to be bottled. As the wines age, they become more intense in taste (coffee, caramel, hazelnut, walnut, orange peel) and more syrupy. The younger wines are fresher and easier to appreciate.

Back to unfortified and back to the pithari
The lion’s share of the production is in the hands of four large producers who obtain most of their grapes from hundreds of small producers. It is encouraging to see that there is a new generation of winemakers that is vinifying under their own label and bringing the wine back to its artisanal roots. At Revecca in Agias Mamas, one of the fourteen villages, Nikolas Christodoulides and his in-laws have been making three Commandarias since 2015, which, because they are unfortified and therefore contain only about 13 percent alcohol, are much easier to digest. Sweet (170 g/l residual sugar), but also very lively.

Since this year, Revecca has been releasing a nine-year-old wine in addition to a two-year-old blend (Xynisteri and Mavro) and a pure Mavro. It is deeper and richer in taste with a clear hint of the local umami-sweet locust bean pods. It sounds far-fetched, but if you taste or smell them on site, you will understand what I mean.

Revecca is a small winery, but Christodoulides makes the most of what they have with limited resources. In addition to the wines they bottle under their own label, they make Commandaria for others. These are either estates from outside the fourteen villages that buy grapes from Revecca and have them vinified by Christodoulides and his team, or estates that have the grapes but no vinification facilities in one of the fourteen villages, and rent Revecca’s cellar or outsource the vinification to Revecca for a fee.

Christodoulides is very precise and focused with the distribution of his own bottles. The small editions only go to the best restaurants in the larger cities, local taverns that honor the traditional cuisine of Cyprus and the better wine shops.

Christodoulides would like to see the rules of the appellation relaxed so that wines aged in pithari can also carry the name Commandaria on the label. It seems unlikely that they will get their hands dirty in the capital Nicosia, but, says Christodoulides, we are now discussing setting up a parallel appellation. However, Christodoulides is not going to wait for that. He is already experimenting with pithari-aged Commandaria – but for the time being it cannot be labeled as such.

At the Karseras winery in the village of Doros, led by father and son Panayiotis and Philippos Karseras, things are not much different, except that they are a lot bigger. Grandfather Karseras, Panayiotis’s dad, who was for 60 years a priest of the local church, still made Commandaria himself, but his son went to work for ETKO, one of the big producers. One day the director approached him saying that ETKO was having problems maintaining the quality of the bought-in grapes. Wouldn’t Panayiotis want to focus entirely on growing grapes at his own family winery? It provided Karseras with a good income for many years, until he and his son Philippos realised that it was more interesting to make and bottle wine themselves. Father and son Karseras have been making two Commandarias for decades now, a two-year-old and a twenty-year-old. Their style is a little richer than Revecca’s, but they are not far apart.

More production, less consumption
Christodoulides emphasizes that Commandaria is a very versatile wine. “It tastes delicious with blue cheese,” he says, “but as an aperitif, on the rocks or in a cocktail, Commandaria also works very well.” Some may get cold shivers at the thought, but Christodoulides himself sometimes boils it down to a thick syrup that can then be used in food, for example in salad dressings or on desserts.

Surprisingly, consumption of Commandaria in Cyprus is decreasing, while production is actually increasing. Export could be the solution, you might think. But Christodoulides first wants to convince the local population of his wines again, unfortified and preferably from pithari. “Then we can start exporting.” It is an approach that is supported by Michalis Georgiou, a Cypriot wine writer and critic who acted as our tour leader. In the meantime, the Ministry of Tourism is helping out. They are considering offering a free bottle to a select group of the four million tourists that visit Cyprus each year. Tourists are, after all, the most important sales market for Commandaria.

For importers in Europe who need quantity as well as quality, the Commandaria of the large producers can be an interesting additional option alongside Port, Madeira and Sherry. The fortified wines of LOEL and KEO are competently made and tasty, and no one can get hurt financially. Nonetheless, Commandaria will have a hard time competing with other sweet, fortified wines, a style that has unfortunately already fallen on hard times. But for specialist shops, especially those that focus on Greek and/or Eastern European wines, Commandaria is a wine that should not be missing from the range. It is a unique, often complex and delicious sweet wine with a long history. I say: Commandaria, douze points!