Aôri 2024 Muscat of Spina Chania, Crete, Greece

750ml bottle

14% abv

Bone dry, complex, slightly herbal, very fresh, and persistent, with a notably salty flavor and just a whiff of Muscat's more typical floral notes. Elegant aromas of lemon verbena, green apple, lemon, citron, white rose, and jasmine. The palate shows a medium body with crisp acidity. Notes of juicy lemons, lemon blossom, white peach, lime zest, orange‑blossom, bergamot, and a touch of mint.

100% Muscat of Spina, a clone of Muscat Blanc à Petits Grains, found around the community of Spina in Chania.

The handpicked grapes undergo a short maceration, of 5-6 hours, on the skins inside the press, followed by spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel tanks. The majority of the wine is transferred to stainless steel where it stays on fine lees in for five months. A small proportion is transferred to a Clayver ceramic vessel, which Aimilios feels brings salinity to the wine. The wine is lightly fined with bentonite and bottled without filtration.

Organic, non-certified. Manual weeding. Only use of sulfur when needed. Unplowed soil.

Aôri, which means 'mountain' in Cretan dialect, was set up by ex-sommelier Aimilios Andrei and Dimitris Skouras, oenologist and viticulturalist. The project is based around some impressive high-elevation vineyards which Aimilios discovered near Spina, on the mountainous coast southwest of Chania. The altitude – the vineyards they work with are between 750- 850m above sea level - gives a much cooler climate than you might expect in the Mediterranean. Grapes have been grown on Crete since the third millennium BC and it's home to a number of local varieties.

Aimilios was searching for Kotsifali, a rare red grape that can produce elegant wines with high acidity, fine tannins and bright red fruit. He also found 100-year-old plantings of Muscat of Spina, a native clone of Muscat a Petits Grains. He's not usually a fan of this aromatic variety, but the vineyards were so spectacular – ungrafted and densely planted on schist soils over slate he decided to make a wine from there. The result was a Muscat that didn’t smell typically aromatic, Aôri’s Muscat of Spina is saline and textured with refreshing acidity. Their winemaking philosophy is low-intervention, to add as little as possible without risking the precision and clarity of the wines. This is a young project, but we’re excited to see how it develops.